


Back in School

by AlienBoi1303



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Child Abuse, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Non-Graphic Violence, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, no magic, will be adding to tags as the story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27718090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlienBoi1303/pseuds/AlienBoi1303
Summary: Luz Noceda is a troubled kid with ADHD, and a passion for writing.Amity Blight is an annoying know it all who shoves her wealth and brains down everyone’s throats... at least, that’s what Luz thought until they’re forced to work together so Luz doesn’t fail English Lit.So what happens when Luz introduces little miss perfect to the world of alcohol and smoking to cope with her problems?Title is taken from the song back in school by mother mother, which is how I got the idea of this story, as well as my own personal experience with the British school system absolutely sucking with dealing with kids that have ADHDAlso hi to my friend Lucy who convinced me to actually write this lmao
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Emira Blight/Viney
Comments: 145
Kudos: 216





	1. First day back

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, welcome to my new project that I am hopefully going to finish.
> 
> I have an entire plan written out which is surprising for me, so I really hope yall enjoy

Chapter 1; first day back

Hexside sixth form, a well respected school for the amount of lawyers and surgeons it pumped out, and also, the last place in the area that would accept Luz Noceda. It wasn’t her fault, sort of, sometimes the things she did just got, out of hand.

It was probably the reason her mother tried to send her off to camps every summer to fix what was wrong with her. They never helped, and Luz usually just ended up staying at Eda’s house, an old family friend who was now her full time guardian.

The school itself was pretty big, and honestly intimidating, but after she’d been going for nearly three months, the novelty wore off.

She was sitting outside the gates, waiting for them to open, and trying to will away a headache that had been bugging her.

Note to self, remaining hangovers and no sleep don’t mix well, she thought to herself, taking a big gulp of her coke. Maybe the caffeine would kill it.

She’d spent the last week mostly partying with her friends, congratulating her on making it through half a term without being kicked out. As well as this, there was the huge Halloween party the previous Saturday, that Luz’s head was still beating her up for, despite the fact she couldn’t remember most of it.

She loved her friends, but most of them either dropped out or just didn’t go to school anymore, which was great to get alcohol and cigarettes, but horrible for her at school when she had no one to talk to during free periods.

She glanced down at her phone, it was only eight, but it meant the school doors would be open, and she could just wait in the art room until nine when her first class started.

She could work on their project, or just do her own stuff because there was no one there to stop her.

She walked up the small hill to get to the school entrance, because of course the school was on a hill, most people there acted like they were higher than everyone else anyways.

She decided to grab some food in the cafeteria before heading to art, since she hadn’t eaten since, wait, when did I last eat? Jeez Noceda, you need to get better at this, she thought. The good thing about the cafeteria was they sold pop to the sixth formers, meaning she could get more caffeine in her system so maybe, just maybe, she could play attention in Literature today.

Did I do the homework? Shit, Mr Atkinsons gonna kill me she groaned, grabbing a can of coke and putting it on the till. The lunch lady gave her an odd look, but didn’t say anything, which was good, because it was way too early to get looked at condescendingly.

“I’m guessing you didn’t do the essay then?” A snide voice said from behind Luz.

Without even turning around, she knew who it was, of course she’d be here this early.

“What do you want, Blight?” Luz groaned, paying for her cold bagel and drink.

“Breakfast, isn’t it obvious?” The other girl smirked.

“Strange, didn’t think you’d eat this stuff, isn’t it too lowly for you,” Luz shot back.

“Ugh, whatever, can you just move, some of us have studying to do.”

Luz flushed red, “I’m here to work on course work!” She all but yelled?

“For what? Art? Don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t even know there was coursework for that, don’t you just sit and finger paint all day?”

“Sorry not all of us have a stick up are asses, some people actually want to enjoy their lives,” this time, Amity was the one to go red, which Luz took as a huge victory, “see you in Lit, Blight,” Luz said, flipping her off as she walked away.

Why did Amity have to be like that? And by ‘like that’ Luz meant undeniably attractive as well as being a complete bitch. As a proud and out bisexual, Luz definitely had a preference for women, and despite her bitchyness, Amity was definitely her type.

She had long, brown hair, that was messy, but in a good way, like, as if she had styled it specifically to be that way. And she always wore smart clothes, like, office smart, but not quite pantsuit, more of a button up with a jumper or cardigan on top. And her eyes. They were golden, literally, Luz had never seen anything like it, and almost thought they were contacts the first time they crossed paths.

Hell, if she didn’t know how much of a ‘good girl’ Amity was, she would have still thought they were contacts.

Luz suddenly felt insecure about her own looks, her ratty, oversized army jacket hung awkwardly over her shoulders, threatening to be pulled off if Luz so much as moved her old denim backpack.

Shaking her head, she reminded herself that at least her clothes had personality.

The art department was away from the sixth form area, so Luz had to go out a back exit, towards the lower school to get to it.

“Hey, Paki! Why don’t you go back to your own country!” A year nine yelled at her. Luz bristled at the comment, not only was she not Pakistani, she couldn’t stand kids who acted like that.

She stormed over, army boots slamming off the floor. “What did you say to me Gringo?” Luz spat, getting right into the kids face.

He was maybe three inches shorter than her, but he still cowered like she was a giant.

“I… uh,” he stuttered.

“First of all, I’m Hispanic, so if you’re gonna be a bigot, get it right, and second,” she shoved him, causing him to sprawl onto the floor, “you ever say anything like that again, I will personally hunt you down and cut your balls off, got it?”

The boy quickly nodded, and jumped to his feet, running off.

Sighing, Luz went back to the wooden doors of the art block, shoving them open.

There were three art rooms, for the three art teachers, but her favourite one had to be Mrs Louis’ that she loved the most. It was cluttered with other students' art projects from throughout the years, and there were so many hiding spots that were great to hang out in during free periods.

It really helped since Luz didn’t exactly have many friends in the school.

What didn’t help was that the town they lived in, Bonesburrow (seriously who names a town that) was fairly small, with not many schools, and since Hexside was apparently a very popular sixth form for people to go to, rumors of her past, incidents, at school spread pretty quick.

Turns out that kids who are really academic don’t exactly want to hang out with the girl who’s been kicked out of three schools in five years.

Luz sighed, pulled out the painting she’d been working on, and got back to work, not even noticing the splats of paint getting on her face and her jacket.

—————————————————————————————————————

Why does Literature have to be on the other side of the school to Language Luz internally groaned as she dodged in between year sevens, still getting lost on their way to class.

Usually, the walk between her Language class and her Literature class was alright, sure she had to get past all the lower years who made an impenetrable wall most of the time, but she’d always get to her next class on time.

But today, it seemed like the universe was against her.

Not only did she leave her bag in the classroom when she’d gotten up to leave, the wall of children had blocked her from getting back in for another two minutes. By the time that she had grabbed her bag and maneuvered her way out of the building, she still had to run across the school grounds to the sixth form block to actually get to her class.

Having three school buildings she had to get to for her three different classes absolutely sucked sometimes.

“Ah, Miss Noceda, nice of you to finally join us,” Mr Atkinson said from the front of the room, causing a few slight chuckles from the rest of the class.

“Sorry sir, I got held up in my last class,” she mumbled, trying to hurry to her desk.

“Ah ah, wait a minute, I do hope you have your homework today.”

Luz sighed, she knew this was coming, “no sir, I’ll bring it in tomorrow, I must have left it on my desk at home,” she lied, her face going red as she felt the entire class's eyes on her.

“I should’ve guessed, sit down, I want to see you after class.”

She shuffled to her seat, ignoring the looks she was getting off the rest of the class, including Amity.

The only reason she’d taken this class was because it would be easier for her to get into creative writing courses at university, she really couldn’t care less about the subtext in Macbeth.

The bell rung about 50 minutes later, and while everyone was piling out of the room for lunch, the teacher called over the crowd “Miss Blight, would you mind stopping back too?”

Internally, Luz groaned, why would Mr Atkinson need Amity? To prove to Luz how bad of a student she was?

“I would like to talk to the two of you about your grades,” Luz rolled her eyes, while Amity looked as if she’d seen a ghost, “nothing, too bad,” the teacher clarified, looking directly at Amity, “just that I think it would be beneficial for you two to work together. With Amity as our top student, I think it would be very helpful for you Luz, maybe some of her smarts will rub off on you.”

Luz cringed at the idea of being anywhere near Amity Blight, “so you want her to tutor me?” Luz asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, no, nothing like that, I just think it would be good if the two of you sat together in this class, worked together, maybe Amity could help you see the things you’re missing. Luz, I know you’re smart, you just need to try,” 

If I had a penny for every time I heard that phrase I could just drop out of school already, Luz thought bitterly, “I know sir,” she said, trying to force herself to not sound as angry as she was feeling.

“Well, that will be all girls, I will see you in tomorrow’s class, and Luz, remember your homework, there’s only so many times I can let you off, this is sixth form, you have to try.”

“I know, I’ll see you tomorrow sir,” she said, walking out of the classroom, followed closely by Amity.

“Look, I get that you’re some freeloader who doesn’t care about her education, but I do, so I swear, if my grades go down at all because of you, I will do everything in my power to make your life miserable, got it,” Amity hissed, backing Luz into a corner.

“Wow, I wouldn’t dream of tarnishing your perfect record princess,” she drawled apathetically, before pushing Amity away and walking off. “Oh yeah, almost forgot, if you can make my life anymore miserable, I’d be impressed Blight,” she laughed, before disappearing into the crowd of students outside the cafe.

What Amity didn’t see was Luz hurrying out of the school, and going into the park nearby, sitting on the swing set and grabbing her head.

She’d never wanted to scream more in her life. Quickly pulling a half empty box of cigarettes from an inside pocket of her jacket, she lit one with a purple lighter her friend had given her. “One more class, you have one more class to get to and then you can go home and sleep,” she said to herself, completely forgetting about the English essay she was meant to do.

Just one more class.


	2. The first study session

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to the fact it took me and my friend about ten minutes to work out a nickname to call Willow, since half a witch doesn’t really fit

Luz had managed to get through one full day without running into Amity, and she thought that maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t have to deal with her outside of their Lit class, but Wednesday morning proved her wrong.

It honestly should have been illegal for the school to give her triple Literature on a Wednesday, both first thing in the morning, and last lesson of the day. Scratch that, last two lessons of the day.

It was bad enough that she had her least favorite lesson first, but now she had to sit next to her rival, Amity Blight for the whole three hours. That was three hours too many in Luz’s eyes, she’d be lucky to make it to Christmas without killing the other girl.

“Oi, Noceda,” Amity said, placing her books down on the seat next to Luz’s. She seemed almost surprised that Luz was early to class, especially given Mondays incident, but those were the perks of insomnia, no matter how hard she tried, sometimes Luz just couldn’t sleep, and she wasn’t meeting up with Willow until after school on Friday, so she couldn’t get any weed until then.

“What do you want Blight?” Luz groaned, leaning back on her chair.

“Meet me after school tomorrow in the computer room,” and, without giving Luz time to answer, Amity was pulling her notebook out of her bag, and getting ready to learn.

They finished early on Thursdays, something Luz had never experienced in any of her other schools, and the thought of spending her two hours of freedom with the person she hated most in the world. But then, she thought of her mother, how disappointed she would be if Luz failed her English class, when Camila had fought tooth and nail to get her daughter into this school, given her long permanent record.

There was no arguing with Amity, and Luz thought that maybe, just maybe she could actually learn something from her rival, and maybe Luz could teach her to loosen up a bit sometimes.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I really don’t get this,” Luz groaned. Amity had rambled on for the past ten minutes about the importance of knowing the background of the books they were reading, where the author was born, when they grew up, what caused them to write the book, but honestly, Luz didn’t care.

“You’re not trying,” Amity snapped back.

“Because it’s boring.”

“This is pointless, do you even want my help?”

“Not really, no, but I also don’t want to fail, and the other kids in class think I’m a delinquent.”

“You are a delinquent,” Amity rolled her eyes.

“You really think so?”

“You’re impossible.”

“Thank you, now, lets play a game.”

“Luz, we’ve been working for ten minutes, you need to at least slightly understand this before we can muck about.”

“I do get it, I think. The whole relationship between Watson and Mary is scandalous, especially if she becomes rich because then people would assume he was only marrying her for money and not for love, which could symbolise how a lot of things were considered rude and socially unacceptable because of the social class system and all that bullshit.”

“That's actually fairly close,” Amity sounded genuinely surprised.

“I did manage to pass the tests that got me into this school. Hell, I got four nines in my GCSEs,” Luz bragged, leaning back in her chair again.

“What did you get nines in?”

“Spanish, Art, Drama and English Language,” Luz shrugged. “Ooh!” she yelled, sitting up quickly, startling Amity, “we should play twenty questions.”

“You do know that Art and Drama aren’t real GCSEs?” Amity scoffed.

“Really? Huh, guess I wasted my time doing them then,” Luz was full on glaring at Amity now, “I don’t know who told you that, but I worked my ass off getting those grades, maybe you should try and do one of those classes, see how you do Blight.”

“Jeez, I was just saying, it’s not like they’re gonna get you a job.”

“Actually, lawyers and paramedics are more likely to get the job if they have some sort of drama degree, because it makes them better at hiding the fact that the patient is in bad shape, or that their client is absolutely fucked, though, I guess you were sheltered from that information, like you obviously were with so many other things.”

“I… you…” Amity stuttered, blinking at a now smiling Luz.

“So, twenty questions?”

“Fine, but after that we’re getting back to work, deal?”

“Deal. Favorite colour?”

“Weird start, mint green, yours?”

“Creative Blight, purple. What do you do for fun?”

“Study.”

“You are so lame Blight,” Luz laughed, nearly falling off her chair.

Flushing red, Amity shot back “well, what do you do for fun then?”

“Usually go to the park with Gus and Willow.”

“Ha,” Amity snorted, “Willow Park in the park.”

“I know right, wait, YOU KNOW WILLOW!” Luz was up off her chair now, staring down at Amity in what looked like awe.

“Uh, yeah? She used to go here, how do you know Willow?”

“She’s my weed dealer,” Luz shrugged.

Amity, on the other hand, nearly choked on her own spit at the idea of Wormy Willow dealing drugs.

“Yeah, I mean I was surprised too, but who’s gonna suspect the innocent looking pale girl to be the one who supplied the green brownies at the creek?”

The creek was a place where most of the kids threw parties, especially in the summer. It was far enough away from the town centre so as long as the music wasn’t concert loud, the police likely wouldn’t come, and if they did, there were plenty of escape routes and places to hide.

“Didn’t think wormy Willow had it in here,” Amity muttered, and Luz’s face immediately darkened.

“Don’t call her that.”

“What?” 

“Don’t call Willow ‘wormy Willow’.” She practically growled.

“Jeez, it’s just a nickname, don’t act like it’s such a big deal Noceda.”

“Clearly you’ve never had a shitty nickname then? One that practically haunts you?”

Thinking back, she did always hate the nickname ‘mittens’ her siblings called her, but even then, it wasn’t too bad, just embarrassing at times, especially when they said it infront of other people.

“Yeah, well, whatever, it’s not like I’m the one who made it up, you can thank Boscha for that one, she’s kind of a bitch.”

“Ha, you’re one to talk Bitchy Blight, hey, that’s gonna be your new nickname,” Luz started cackling, until she fell off her chair, which caused her to laugh even more, and for Amity to start laughing at the girl, now actually crying on the floor of the otherwise empty study room.

Once she’d stopped, Amity had given the Willow situation a bit of thought.

“Look, Luz, it’s not my place to say, but I did some really shitty stuff to Willow when we were kids, and while it wasn’t fully my fault, I still took part, so, can you please tell her I’m sorry?” There was genuine remorse in her eyes, and Luz couldn’t help but agree to talk to her friend about it.


	3. Safe Haven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s finally Friday, one of the only two days Luz doesn’t have any classes with Amity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight warning cause there is mention of weed and smoking in this, both underage, also a bit of blood so uhhh, you’ve been warned

Finally, after what was probably the longest week of Luz’s life, it was Friday. She’d had a pretty full day, but at least she didn’t have a Lit class on Fridays, so she didn’t have to deal with Bitchy Blight.

During her last class before lunch, art, her phone went off, luckily she had her headphones on so no one heard the dumb ringtone she’d set for Willow. For some reason she thought it was absolutely hilarious to set it to the infamous line from the Snoop Dogg song, ‘smoke weed everyday’, and hadn’t been bothered to change it after the novelty wore off.

Willow Park- park after school? Got a new batch and I miss seeing your ugly mug

Luzer- yeah I’m down, gustopher coming?

Willow Park- you’re the one in his school, you ask him

Luzer- fiiiiiiiiine, I’ll kidnap him after school, see ya later bitch

Willow Park- love you too whore 

Laughing slightly, Luz slid her phone back into her pocket and went back to glaring at her canvas, remembering to turn her phone on silent.

She should probably message Eda to tell her that she was going to be out, but the teacher was already giving her side glances, and she didn’t want to feel the wrath of Mrs Louis, not after the incident of this morning where she nearly ruined her whole portfolio by knocking over her energy drink.

_ Maybe I should invest in a sippy cup, like the ones kids have that are made to not spill,  _ she thought, tapping her chin with the brush side of her paintbrush, getting blue paint on her face.

“Fuck,” she said, a little too loud.

“Language Miss Noceda,” the teacher said, trying to hide a laugh as she noticed the paint on her students face, “and maybe wipe that off before the bell goes.”

“Sorry miss, and I will do,” Luz shot some awkward finger guns, before almost losing her balance getting a few more looks from the other kids in the class. It wasn’t uncommon for her to lose her balance and nearly fall over while she was working, but she still couldn’t help when her face flushed red.

Once the bell went, Luz stayed a bit later than usual cleaning up after herself and finishing her painting.

She’d really enjoyed doing it, a red landscape that looked kind of like Mars, she’d also painted a flying animal of some sort, but she wasn’t joking when she said that animals were not her best thing to draw.

“Sorry to leave you miss, but for once I have plans for lunch,” Luz joked, splashing some water on her face to get rid of the paint.

“Oh, what kind of plans?” The teacher asked, not looking up from what she was doing on the computer. Luz wasn’t exactly friends with her teachers, but they did have small conversations when Luz was spending her many free lessons hiding in her classroom.

“Kidnapping small children, see ya later miss!” Before letting the teacher answer, she ran out of the art block, and to the table where Gus and his friends were having lunch.

“Hey Luz, come to join us on our quest?” One of Gus’ friends said. They were, of course, talking about Dungeons and Dragons, Gus had been running a game all school year, that he’d spent most of the summer planning, and while she would usually stay to at least make fun of the kids, she needed to tell Gus where to meet or he would just go home.

“Ah, not today kiddos, I gotta ask Gus something, mind if I steal him?” Instead of waiting for any of them to respond, she just grabbed Gus and pulled him aside.

“Wassup Luz?” Gus asked, shoving his notebook under his arm.

“You coming to the park tonight with me and Willow?”

“Yeah sure, I’ll just message my dad, now can I pleaseeee get back to this game? We’re about to meet a really important character,” Gus practically begged, and Luz had to hide a smile.

“Aight king of the nerds, try not to get too into it, I’d hate to have to castrate any of those kids who were being assholes to you last time.”

“Thanks Luz, but don’t worry, Mr Edison said we could use his room from next week onwards, so it shouldn’t be much of an issue anymore, maybe we can even get after school games in.”

“Aight, see ya kiddo, tell the nerds I think they’re lame,” she called, heading back to the sixthform.

She didn’t have a fifth period, but had to be back by 2:30 to have time to get ready for her last lesson, English Language.

——————————————————————————————

“I’m just saying Willow, if your leg gets cut off, you won’t feel the pain, cause you don’t have a leg to feel pain in,” Luz said, leaning against the ladder on the slide.

“Yeah, and I’m just saying you’re a dumbass,” Willow retorted from the level below.

The park they were in had a lot of climbing stuff, especially in the area for older kids, and their favourite was the slide. It had three layers, that you could either pull yourself up onto or use the ladder, all leading to the top where the metal slide was.

The whole thing was shaped loosely like the Eiffel Tower, but made entirely out of wooden slats, meaning if you were good (or dumb) enough to do so, you could climb up the outside to get to the top.

“Come on Gus, what do you think?” Luz yelled down to where Gus was sitting next

to Willow, drinking a 30p energy drink.

“I gotta side with Luz on this one, sorry Willow,” he shrugged, nearly choking as Luz let out a yell of victory.

“Okay, okay, fine, so you’re both dumb,” Willow was cut off by a yell of protests before she continued, “but,” she carried on, “I came here to do business, so,” she pulled a ziplock bag out of her backpack, and tossed it up to Luz.

“You’re a lifesaver Willow, you will not believe the week I’ve had,” Luz sighed, handing her friend a twenty pound note from one of her many pockets.

“What’s been going on?” Gus asked, pulling another energy drink out of his bag.

“Mr Ass-kinson chewed me out about my failing grades, and made none other than Amity fucking Blight sit next to me for every single English lesson I have with her, and then, she decides to personally tutor me every Thursday after school,” she groaned, fishing around in her pockets to pull out a box of cigarettes, “Willow, you want one?” She offered, pulling her purple lighter out the same pocket.

“Nah, been trying to quit, you know what my dads are like.”

“Can I have one?” Gus asked, trying to give Luz his puppy eyes.

“Yeah, no, you’re like, five years old, wait until you’re at least twenty kid,” Luz laughed.

“I’m fourteen!” Gus yelled, scowling slightly at Luz.

“Same difference, my answer is still no. Now, let’s see what trouble we can stir up before your bedtime.”

Walking around the park for a while, they were almost upset when they didn’t see anything fun.

The park was huge, but it was mostly hills and paths, with a small football area covered in rabbit shit and moss, to the point it was more like an ice rink than a pitch. There was also the lake and the bandstand, but the chavs usually hung out at the bandstand, and the swans in the lake were prone to attacking random passers by if they didn’t have food.

They were about to call it quits when they saw the best thing an under eighteen could see, a shopping trolley.

It was a bit dented, but the wheels were still on and not too misaligned, so they all chucked their bags in and managed to convince the youngest member of their group to get in.

They ran around the park, swapping out who was in every so often, playing music on Willow’s speaker.

Luz was in her second go in the trolley, they were laughing, Gus pushing, not able to see where he was going because of Luz being in the way, when they hit a stick and Luz went flying out.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, except Luz was standing right at the edge of the trolley, so when it fell, her weight pushed it further than it would have gone usually.

Her face scraped across the floor, and when she finally stopped, the trolley fell on her, knocking the remaining wind out of her lungs.

In hindsight, it was a dumb idea to begin with, but it was also really funny to watch, and while Luz was trying to understand what had happened, Gus and Willow were laughing their asses off at their friend.

They did, however, stop as soon as Luz got up, and they noticed the amount of blood coming from their friend’s cheek.

“Woah, that doesn’t look good,” Willow winced.

“Holy shit Luz, that’s gonna leave a cool scar,” Gus agreed.

Luz, however, wasn’t listening to her friends talk about her face, she was more worried about the static filling her vision, and the fact that she felt like she was about to pass out.

She barely noticed when Willow grabbed her arm, and started pulling her over to a bench, or Gus talking hurriedly on the phone to someone.

It was only an hour later when she was in a&e that she finally realised that they had really fucked up.

She got five stitches in her cheek, and a huge bandage that covered up pretty much all of the right side of her face, making her look extremely stupid.

Eda was giving her the ‘we’ll talk about this when we get home’ look, which was never good, especially since Luz knew that she still smelled of smoke from earlier.

Usually, she’d spray herself with deodorant just before she started walking home, so her guardian was none the wiser, but because of the incident and her blood loss, she hadn’t even thought to tell Willow to do it for her before Eda came running to get her to the hospital.

Neither Eda or Luz spoke on the drive home, it was ten at night, and both of them were exhausted and annoyed, and Luz just knew that she was going to get chewed out when she got in. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who’s left positive message on this, also correcting me when I type the wrong name lmao, I’m glad people are enjoying this story so far, and I should have the next chapter up soon ish


	4. Middle Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luz sneaks out of the house, and meets an unexpected person on the bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo, two chapters in one day, sorry for the fact that this is pretty long, its like 7 pages on google docs lmao

In the end, Luz got grounded for a week, meaning she had to come straight home from school, and once Eda got home, Luz had to give her all electronics, so she had to do all her homework on paper.

It wasn’t that bad, sometimes Eda wasn’t even home until late, so even though Luz was dying of boredom in her room all day, she could still go to the shop and use some of her money she’d saved up to buy energy drinks.

Eda had also gone through her jacket, pulling out her lighters and cigarette boxes, but thankfully, she didn’t notice the secret pocket Luz had sown in that had the small sandwich bag in.

Eda was, strange, to say the least. She had a lot of problems, like her chronic muscle pain, that she had to take some weird medicine for, that the only thing Luz knew about was that it was bright yellow, and smelt awful.

She got it from some sketchy dude in the market place about five miles away. When she wasn’t making shady deals with this guy to get her ‘potion’ as she liked to call it, she was working at her own stall in the market, selling whatever junk she could find, trying to brand it as some wonderful new machine that could do whatever it needed to.

When she was younger, Luz thought it was one of the coolest things, but, that was before she realised that Eda was lying to literally everyone who bought off of her.

Luz had spent the entirety of Saturday moping around her room, before going out to the Tesco that was up the road for lunch and to meet up with Willow, who apologised profusely, and gave Luz a new packet of cigarettes to replace the ones Eda took off her. Luz didn’t want to remind her friend that she always had spares in her room just in case something like that ever happened, but Willow was insistent, especially since she saw it as her own fault Luz got both hurt and caught.

Eda had gotten home at about ten that night, and slept mostly all day, before telling Luz that she was going to be out the next night for an important family thing, which Luz brushed off.

Eda wasn’t close with any of her own family, having been basically adopted by the Noceda’s when she was in her early twenties, when she met Luz’s mum at Uni.

“Remember kid, you’re still grounded, so I’m trusting you not to leave the house okay? You have school in the morning, and I’ll talk to you after okay? I expect you to be home at 4:30, okay?”

“A’ight, can I have my phone?” Luz asked, looking over from where she was on the sofa, reading while their cat King sat on her lap.

“Nice try kid, use the landline, and there’s a tenner on the side so you can order pizza, see you after school tomorrow.”

“Bye Eda,” Luz waited until she knew Eda had driven off before getting up. She was getting really sick of the house, and needed to get out. Luz was the kind of person who hated being in the same place for too long, and the house wasn’t big enough for her to not feel like she was trapped.

She’d had this same problem in Primary school, where all her classes were in the same room, so sometimes she would just go wandering about, until she was found by another teacher and yelled at. It wasn’t her fault, she just got restless sometimes.

Eda had said she wouldn’t be back until Luz got home from school the next day, meaning she could do basically whatever she wanted all night.

At 5:36pm, she ordered a pizza from the place up the road. They had a deal where if you ordered over the phone, on any night other than Friday and Saturday, it was buy one get one free pizza, so Luz got two large chicken and sweetcorn ones, leaving one in the kitchen for when Eda got home, and having the other one for herself.

She watched tv for another couple hours, until all that was one was reality shows that she really didn’t enjoy.

It was about 10pm when they started, and so she went into her room, grabbed her school bag packing anything she needed for Monday, and snuck out her window, leaving a note for Eda saying she must have just missed her cause she left early.

Luz was a known insomniac, and Eda usually woke up around noon, so they had a note system in place in case one of them left before the other was up, just so there wouldn’t be any confusion on where anyone was at any time.

Of course Luz used it to her advantage when she snuck out sometimes, but Eda didn’t need to know that… Though Luz did have to admit that she wished her caretaker was in the house more often than she was.

She knew it must be hard to look after a teenager, especially since they didn’t have that much money, but to Luz, it felt like she wasn’t even trying, she just expected Luz to be able to take care of herself while Eda did whatever it was she was doing when she wasn’t at the market.

Luz decided that the only place she could go was the town centre, obviously she could have gone across the coast, the opposite direction to the next town over, but that was six miles away, and then her way back would have been another nine miles.

There wasn’t much to do at night, to be honest, there wasn’t much to do anyways, but at night no shops were open for her to loiter in and get dirty looks from old ladies, so what was even the point? 

She couldn’t message Willow to see if she was awake, and there was no way she was going to wake Gus up. She wasn’t going to let Gus follow in the same footsteps she did.

So, there she was, sitting on the bridge at three in the morning, smoking and waiting for the sun to rise so she knew what time it was.

She almost didn’t notice the figure walking towards her until they went under a lamppost, illuminating their features, and causing Luz to drop her cigarette.

“Ah, shit,” she muttered, getting the attention of the person walking towards her.

“Luz? What are you doing out here?” Amity asked, looking at the other girl like she almost didn’t believe she was there.

“Oh, hey Amity, I’m just, uhh,” she quickly stomped out the cigarette, hoping Amity hadn’t noticed. Obviously she had, but she didn’t mention it, not then anyways.

Instead, Amity just looked Luz up and down, obviously judging her outfit.

Luz was wearing her normal army jacket, black jeans and yellow flannel, with her red beanie on her head. The only difference to her usual outfit was her t-shirt, she was wearing one of Eda’s shirts, a dumb neon one, with ‘bad bitch’ written on the front

“What the hell are you wearing?” Amity snorted, causing Luz to laugh.

“In my defence, I haven’t done my laundry in like, two weeks, this is Eda’s.”

“Damn, you call your mam by her first name? Didn’t peg you as the type Noceda.”

“Eda isn’t my mam, don’t worry,” Luz shrugged, sitting back on the bridge. 

“What the hell happened to your face?” Amity asked, quickly changing the subject, noticing the uncomfort on Luz’s face.

“Hm? Oh, fell out of a shopping trolley, wanna see the stitches?”

“Why the fuck were you in a shopping trolley?”

“I was bored, thought it was a good idea, honestly it was funny. Anyways, you didn’t answer my question, wanna see the stitches?”

Amity looked at her with a look of disgust, and Luz couldn’t blame her, honestly it was pretty gross. The whole area was still red and scraped up, and either they ran out of a different colour, or they just didn’t have any other colour in general, but the stitches were black, which stood out a lot on her tanned skin. 

“No thanks, I’m okay.”

“Come on Blight, how you gonna be a surgeon if you can’t even look at recent stitches?”

“No, I just don’t wanna look at your ugly mug,” Amity smirked.

“Miss Blight, you wound me,” Luz sighed, lying back, hand on her heart.

“So, why are you out here anyways ?” Amity lent against the bridge.

Luz shrugged, pulling her box of cigarettes out of her pocket, maybe I should take Willow’s lead and try to quit, God knows they’re killing me, she thought, sitting up so she could light one.

“You want one?” Luz offered, almost as an afterthought.

Amity took one, eyeing it awkwardly, as she watched Luz light her own out of the corner of her eye.

“I’ve uh, never done this,” Amity admitted.

“You know you don’t have to just cause I am, I ain’t into pressuring people, plus, you’re a big girl, you can make your own decisions,” Luz laughed, handing her new lighter over.

“Yeah, try telling that to my mam, she still insists on making sure I’m only friends with ‘the right people’,” She rolled her eyes, trying to mimic Luz’s actions in lighting her cigarette.

It burned for maybe a second, before going out, and Amity went red as she heard Luz snicker behind her.

“Don’t worry Blight, I can tell fire isn’t your strong suit, hand it over,” Amity gave Luz the cigarette and the lighter, and watched as Luz fiddled for a second before getting it lit, all the while with her own cigarette in her mouth.

“There you go, now, just make sure your body’s blocking the wind, or get up here with me, I don’t mind.”

Amity decided on climbing up to where Luz was sitting on the bridge.

The bridge itself was made of a bunch of triangles, all connected together to make the semicircle on top of the tarmac that the cars went on. It wasn’t comfortable at all, in fact, it was freezing, but the hot smoke the girls were inhaling helped warm them up, and neither of them wanted to head back home.

“So, Blight, what are you doing out here this early? Don’t mummy and daddy want to make sure their little princess is safe?” Luz teased, earning a warning glare from Amity.

“They don’t know I’m out,” Amity admitted.

“Ooh, little miss perfect breaking the rules, has hell finally frozen over?”

“Do you ever shut up?” Amity shot.

“Nope, that’s one of my best features.”

“Yeah, sure, well, this was fun, but I better get going,” Amity got up to leave, but Luz grabbed her arm.

“Stay, I can tell you don’t wanna go home, you don’t have to talk about it, but,” Luz sighed, “I’m sorry Amity, I’m, uh, not exactly the best with this kinda stuff.”

Amity sighed, “it’s fine, I just, she’s a bit overwhelming, you know? My siblings left over the summer, and now everythings on me to be the best since neither of them are distracting our parents with their dumb pranks,” there were tears at the corners of Amity’s eyes, but she refused to cry, not infront of Luz.

“So, oh yeah, did you hear that some actress died?” Luz asked out of nowhere.

“What?”

“Yeah, some actress got murdered, her name was Reece… something? I dunno, I don’t know celebrities that well.”

“Wait, Wetherspoon?” Amity asked, sitting up. That was her mothers favorite actress.

“No, the police report said it was with a knife,” Luz was smiling now, looking at Amity.

Amity, on the other hand, was staring at Luz like she was absolutely insane. It took her a minute to actually realise what Luz said, before she burst out laughing.

“That was the absolute worst joke I have ever heard,” Amity said in between laughs.

“Then how come you’re laughing so much?” Luz smirked.

“Cause you’re dumb.”

“Oof. Stop bullying me Blight.”

“Whatever, what time even is it?”

“Uhhh,” Luz shrugged, “I don’t know, don’t have my phone,” she admitted.

“Why don’t you have a phone?”

“Technically I’m meant to be grounded.”

“Damn, well, it’s four, so we have a while before school starts, you gonna head home?”

“Nah, it’s not like anyones there waiting up for me anyways.”

“What about Eda? Or your mam?”

“Eda’s out and my mam’s…” she stopped for a second, thinking, “she’s at work.”

“She work the night shift a lot?” Amity asked, throwing Luz a smile full of pity.

“Yeah, but I don’t mind too much, I just don’t see her that often, could be worse.”

“Fair, I don’t think I’m gonna head home either, it’s harder to sneak back in than it is to sneak out,” Amity laughed slightly. “Wanna listen to some music? I got spotify premium, so…” she was holding up an airpod, and Luz couldn’t help but laugh.

“Smells like broke in here,” Luz wheezed out, clutching her stomach.

Amity couldn’t help but crack a smile, something about Luz made it hard to not be happy around her. “Yeah yeah, my parents are rich, I know. You wanna listen or not?”

“Sure, what you got on there?” Luz asked, putting the left earpod in.

Amity shrugged, “mother mother? I can shuffle the playlist I have of my personal favorites on there?” She suggested.

“Yeah sure, I’m down with that.”

They ended up sitting in silence for the next three hours, listening to music and making small conversation.

At around half seven, they both went their separate ways, Amity taking the bus to school so she could get there early to do some homework for Wednesday, while Luz took the long road walking, thinking about Amity.

Could they now be considered friends? They obviously didn’t hate each other anymore, but she wasn’t sure if that meant they were friends.

She didn’t want to go out of her way to make new friends, obviously she didn't want to drag Amity’s social standing down to her level by association, so maybe she would just stay out of her way and wait for Amity to approach her first.

Yeah, that was a good plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoop, couple thousand words pumped out lol, hope yall like, remember to like and comment cause they're the only things keeping me going haha, also tell me if you don't understand something i've typed, and I hope y'all are ready for the next chapter cause shit gets dark


	5. Painful Memories (1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Its the school day after the bridge incident, and despite the fact that Luz said she wouldn't initiate anything between herself and Amity, it seems that the universe has other plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't slept in like a day because I have been in such a writing groove, this is not healthy lmao.
> 
> Tbh I should probably write a couple chapters in advance cause I know that Imma get in a slump or writers block, but like, psssht

“Move it dork,” that was the only warning Luz got before she was shoved to the floor by none other than Boshca, one of Amity’s friends.

“Fuckin bitch,” Luz muttered, brushing herself off.

“Hey, Boscha,” someone yelled from down the hall. Luz looked up to see Amity standing with her hands on her hips. Of course she was going to be over here, English Lit was about to start.

“Oh, hey Amity, I was just helping the new girl up,” Boscha said, fake smile plastered on her face.

“First of all, she isn’t new, she’s been going here all year, which you would know if your head wasn’t up your ass all the time,” Luz barked out a laugh, causing everyone to look at her where she was sitting on the floor. “Secondly,” Amity continued, “I saw you push her, so either you apologise, or we are going to have some problems,” there were a few ‘ooh’s from the hallway, kids who stopped heading to class to watch arguably the two most popular girls fight.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Boscha pouted, “I didn’t know you were friends with this freak.”

Luz knew she should be used to words like that at this point, she’d been called them her whole life, but something about the situation, everyone looking at her, Amity looking at her, made her want to curl up into a ball and disappear.

“Oh Boscha, you’re forgetting that the Blight’s only accept a small number of people to associate with, but you know, I can always make it smaller if you want me to,” she smiled, walking over, and offering her hand to Luz.

“Whatever, not like I wanted to associate with a bunch of faggots anyways,” Boscha said, shoving Amity over, before walking off to her next class.

“Shit, Amity, are you okay?” Luz quickly asked, helping the other girl to her feet.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Are you?”

“Yeah, I’m used to it,” Luz admitted, scratching the back of her neck.

“You shouldn’t be, come on, we should tell Mrs Weddel, she can’t get away with this,” Amity said, pulling Luz over to the office.

“Amity, stop, let’s just get to class, the teachers aren’t gonna do anything, trust me on this.”

“But, she can’t just…” Amity stuttered.

“Look, you haven’t been in as many schools as I have, let's just get to class, the best we can do is just ignore it.”

“Fine, We’ll talk about this later, okay,” she pointed a finger into Luz’s face, and Luz couldn’t help but smile at how nice Amity was being to her.

“You goin soft on me Blight?” Luz smiled.

“Psch, you wish, I just don’t want that stick up Boscha’s ass to give her permanent brain damage, for all I know, her parent's will make me take care of her,” Amity laughed.

The class went by fairly quickly, especially for an English Lit lesson, Amity was sharing her notes with her, and while she still didn’t get it, she could just bullshit the essay. Mr Atkinson decided that he would give out homework every Monday from that day onwards, and it would be collected on a Wednesday morning, giving him enough time to mark it and have it back to them by the next Monday.

There were complaints from the class, people saying that it wasn’t enough time to do at least three pages of A4, to which he responded by reminding him that tests were only two hours long, and they had to write much more than three pages.

Luz was one of the only kids who didn’t mind, as she knew that no matter what, she’d leave it to last minute, and at least this time she wouldn’t be the only one.

“Hey, Luz, wait up,” Amity called, Luz had left as soon as the bell went, not used to having friends in her classes.

“Hm? Wassup Amity?”

“What are your plans for lunch?”

“I usually grab food then either sit in the art block or go to the park, why?”

“I was wondering if you wanted to eat with me? I mean, obviously you don't have to but…”

“Amity, I’d love to, just lemme grab my food okay?” Luz cut her off, smiling.

As per usual, the lunch choice was either some form of processed and breaded chicken, or what was probably curry, and either chips or rice.

Luz went with the safe choice of chicken and chips. Today's version of chicken was nuggets, though it wasn’t uncommon for it to be in strips, which were Luz’s favorite mostly because they were spicey and it reminded her of her mothers cooking.

“Do you know how fucking happy I am that I don’t have to line up with year sevens anymore? Like I don’t know if it was just the schools I went to or what, but the year sevens were complete assholes, you get me?”

“Yeah, no, that's a universal thing, trust me,” Amity laughed, “do you mind if I ask you something?”

“No it’s not true that i a) blew up the gym, b) set fire to a girls clothes or c) watched other girls get changed,” Luz sighed, stabbing her chips.

“No, no, I was gonna ask why did you get kicked out of those schools, I’m not gonna believe what Boscha and them say, they’re full of shit anyways.”

“Yeah, true, well, you sure you wanna know? They’re kinda dumb for the most part.”

“I mean, if you’re okay telling me, then I wanna hear.”

“Alright, well, at my first school…”

\-------------------------------------------------------------

The auditions for the spring play were that Monday, and Luz had been practicing all week. She knew it was unlikely for her to get the lead in her first year, but her mama always told her to try, so she did.

She was really excited, the play was Les Mis, and while it wasn’t her favorite, she knew her mam would love it, especially since it came with basically the promise of making at least a couple friends.

Luz had stayed up the night before, working on a small mechanism that would go under her shirt.

She was trying out for the role of Gavroche, and while singing his final song, he got shot, so she decided to set off a bag of blood hidden under her shirt, to give a more realistic performance.

Unbeknownst to her, auditions were held infront of everyone who wanted to try out, so new people got the gist of what the teachers were looking for.

This would have been fine except for a couple squeamish girls in the audience, one of whom threw up after seeing what looked like Luz getting shot in the chest.

\------------------------------------------------------------

“They kicked you out for that?” Amity asked, surprised.

“The girl who puked parents were like, stupid rich, and payed a lot of money to the school. The girl wanted me gone, so, poof, I was gone,” Luz explained. It was dumb, and her mother had thrown an absolute fit about it, but Luz didn’t mind, that school gave her weird vibes, it was way too big. “In all fairness, the next two ones were my own fault. I spent a year and a half at my new school, but they kicked me out at the end of year eight.”

“Is this the time people think you blew up the school gym?” Amity asked.

“Yeah, and they’re not too far off, but I just blew up a toilet.”

“You what!” Amity yelled, causing multiple people around them to stare.

“In my defence, I didn’t mean to.”

“You have to explain.”

“So y’know those little bags that have gun powder in? You throw them on the floor and they make a small bang?” Luz asked, and Amity nodded, “I got like a bunch of them, and put them under a toilet seat in the staff toilets, but apparently I put way too many there, cause the toilet blew up, like, shattered.”

Amity couldn’t help but laugh at the image.

“Yeah, I mean, physics was never really my strong suit, but hey, that summer, when my mam tried to send me to some camp to get me fixed, it’s were I became so close with Eda. She promised not to tell my mam where I was if I did some jobs for her.”

“Awh, that’s sweet.”

“Yeah, but then my mam decided that wasn’t enough and sent me to this Catholic boarding school for the next three years, which sucked. Good tip, don’t be openly gay in those places,” Luz laughed, kicking her feet up onto the table.

“Damn, why’d you get kicked out of there?”  
“That's another story for another day,” Luz said, not making eye contact with Amity.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Amity said, putting her hand on luz’s shoulder. “Wait, you’re gay?”

“Psht, yeah, well, bi, but I definitely prefer girls to guys, men suck,” Luz laughed, turning back to look at Amity, a bright smile back on her face. “Pinky promise I won’t get a crush on you Blight, I ain’t into straight girls,” she laughed.

“Yeah, who said I was straight,” Amity muttered, looking down at her own lunch.

“Hm?” Luz asked, not hearing what Amity had said.

“Nothing, just saying that I wish I’d packed more food,” it wasn’t a lie, she’d only had time to grab a sandwich and an apple before she left the house early that morning.

“Here, you can have the rest of mine, I don’t mind,” Luz still had quite a lot of chips left, and Amity gladly accepted, having not eaten since Sunday lunch.

“Thanks,” Amity muttered, getting up to grab her own fork.

When she came back, Luz was leaning back on her chair, a notebook on her lap. She was doodling in the margin of her English essay that they’d started in class.

Instead of interrupting her, Amity just sat next to her, finishing Luz’s chips, and trying not to stare at her as she was drawing.

From the glances Amity got, she could tell that Luz was extremely talented. While she’d been brought up to see artists as lesser for choosing the easy option in their careers, she had always admired them in their abilities to create such beautiful things, sometimes from their head.

“Y’know,” Luz said, looking over at Amity, “it’s rude to stare.”

“I wasn't, I just, uh” Amity stuttered, trying to explain what she was doing, barely noticing Luz laughing.

“Chill, I was just joking Blight, you wanna see it?” She offered over the notebook, and in the corner Amity could see a small, but very detailed doodle of…

“You drew me?” She asked, looking at Luz in awe.

“Yeah well, your hairstyles’ fun, wanted to try it out,” she shrugged.

“You do know that Mr Atkinson is gonna wonder why there's a drawing of me on your homework,” Amity laughed slightly.

“Ah shit, I forgot this was homework, meh, it’s fine, I’ll probably draw it up better when I get home anyways.”

“Well, if you do, you better show me Noceda, and I get at least twenty percent of your revenue, since, y’know, I’m now your muse,” Amity joked, trying to look as stern as she could.

While they were joking around, they didn’t even notice Boshca coming towards them before she started talking. “Hey, losers, I need to speak to Amity for a minute, hope you don’t mind,” she didn’t wait for a response before pulling Amity up off her chair, and dragging her out of the room and towards the lockers.

“What the hell Boscha, I thought I made it clear to you that I don’t want to associate with you anymore,” Amity snapped, pulling her arm away from Boscha.

“Yeah well, you know both of our parents would flip if we stopped hanging out, so I don’t care.”

As usual, Boscha was right, she might not look it, but underneath her athletic body, was a pretty big brain.

“Ugh, fine, I won’t tell anyone, but I still hate your guts, Riegel,” Amity snarled.

“Likewise Blight, anyways, there’s a party at mine this Saturday, you’re coming, bring whoever I guess, bye,” she waved, walking off without even giving Amity a chance to respond. She hated when people did that.

Just as she disappeared into a classroom, the bell rang, making it harder for Amity to get back into the room Luz was in.

Amity sat down heavily in her seat next to Luz, feeling like she had a ton of bricks on her back.

“So, what did she want?” Luz asked, putting her stuff down.

“She invited me to a party this weekend, and I have to go, ugh,” Amity whined, putting her head down on the desk.

“Oof, don’t you like, hate her though?”

“The feelings are mutual, but because of our parents, we have to at least pretend to be friends, which is absolute bullshit, but hey, what can you do,” she shrugged, turning her head to face Luz, but not picking it up from the table.

“Yeah that sucks, wish I could do something to help,” Luz said apologetically, rubbing Amity’s back.

Amity then sat up so fast that Luz had to quickly pull her hand back so that it didn’t break. “That's it!” Amity yelled, thankful that the next period had started so the room they were in was less crowded.

“Huh?”

“You come to the party with me! I mean it would make it a million times more bearable, plus the look on Boscha’s face would be absolutely priceless…” She stopped her ramblings, looking up at Luz who’s expression was a mix of confusion and humour. “Uh, that is, if you wanted to.”

“Are you asking me on a date Miss Blight?” Luz smirked, laughing when Amity shoved her shoulder.

“Not like that you doof, I just meant.”

“Yes,” Luz cut her off, “I would love to crash Boscha’s party with you.”

Amity couldn’t help but feel a warm heat in her chest as Luz said that. Despite the fact she had just clarified it wasn't a date, it almost felt as if it was, somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all the commenters *cough* nerdylilwriter *cough* lmao, I have had to change my iPad notification sound because the one I had is really loud and has deafened me, because it decides to send five emails in quick succession, not giving me the chance to open the app to silence it lol.
> 
> But really, I do appreciate all the positive feedback I've gotten on this, and I know it's not like the biggest on this sight or even in this fandom, but honestly I didn't expect it to get this much attention, I just thought it was a fun premise and a way for me to get out my frustration at the school system haha


	6. Unwelcome Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luz comes home that night to receive some upsetting news from her guardian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a really short chapter, but it's pretty important for the story
> 
> Slight warning for self harm and panic attacks. The self harm is minor and not describes much, but I thought i would put a warning just incase
> 
> Also I have tonsillitis at the minute meaning I'm either going to get a lot of chapters done cause I'm not at school, or like barely any cause I'll pass out as soon as I get in

“Eda, I’m home!” Luz yelled as she walked into their small home. The door had been unlocked when she got in, so she knew Eda was home.

“Hey kid, come in here a second,” Eda called back from the kitchen.

“Wassup Eda?” Luz asked jumping up to sit on the counter like King often did.

Eda sighed, putting her mug down, “you remember my sister, right?” She asked.

“Strange way to start a conversation, but yeah I remember her, hard to forget someone who tried to kill you,” Luz laughed slightly, hoping Eda wouldn’t say what she was dreading.

“She didn’t try to kill you kid, you and I both know it was an accident,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I know, I know, just making a joke, so, what’s up, she finally get out of the hospital?”

“Yeah, she did. Look, I know you’re probably not the biggest fan of this idea, but she’s family, and she needs somewhere to stay, just while she gets back on her feet. She might not have hospital bills, but that was a traumatic experience, for all of us, and…” Eda was ranting, her face going red as she didn’t take a breath the whole time she was talking.

“Eda, Eda, stop, take a breath, what are you trying to say?” Luz asked, holding her guardians shoulders.

“Lilith is asleep in the room next to yours, she’s going to be staying with us for a while,” Eda finally got out.

Luz felt like she had been shot.

It had been months, five months in fact, almost half a year, and yet the idea of sleeping near, hell, sleeping in the same house as the person who nearly killed her, she couldn’t breathe.

“Kid, kid!” Eda must have been yelling for a while, but her voice seemed muffled, though Luz still heard the slight panic.

The next thing she knew, something cold was being pushed up against her face, and someone was talking into her ear.

“Luz, can you hear me, I’m gonna need a verbal response, just make a noise,” it was Willow, Willow knew how to help.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Luz managed to breathe out. It was strained, and took way more effort than it should have, but she managed to get it out.

“That’s good, can you tell me what you’re sitting on?”

“I… I’m sitting on the counter top, it’s cold, hard, uh…” she trailed off.

“That’s good, you need help breathing or can you tell me what happened?” Willow asked, still sounding slightly panicked.

“No, no, I can breathe, I just,” she sighed, collecting her thoughts, “Lilith’s out of the hospital.”

“Oh, thats, good?” Willow didn’t exactly know how to feel about the whole Lilith situation, she was a naturally forgiving person, and so was Luz, normally.

“I, yeah, but she’s living with us now, and I just,” her lungs were closing up again, and she felt like she was about to puke, that night’s events playing over and over in her mind. “Fuck!” She yelled, slamming her fist into the cabinet behind her, splintering the wood.

Eda, who had walked away to let the girls talk quickly came rushing over at the outburst.

“Kid, lemme see that,” Eda fussed.

“Stop,” Luz muttered, pulling the phone away from her ear, and hanging up, “I’m fine, I’ll be in my room,” she put Eda’s phone down, and headed up the stairs to her room, ignoring the throbbing in her hand.

And to think that the day had started off so well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed


	7. Home Shitty Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amity gets home from school

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another small chapter, I promise next chapter will probably be the party lol.

Amity had known she was gay since basically her first day of year seven. There was a really pretty girl a couple years above her, and she was completely enamoured.

As the years went on, she realised that she couldn’t tell anyone about her sexuality, those who would accept her were few and far between, especially because of the people she hung out with.

Boscha Riegel was known for how poorly she treated other people, especially if she could find a weakness about that person, whether it be their orientation or learning disorders, she was ruthless. 

She was on the rugby team, which caused Amity to laugh whenever she remembered how homophobic she was, since she was fairly sure most of the girls on the team weren’t straight.

Amity had always been the type to keep her head down, ignore whatever her ‘friends’ were doing, opting for the safe choice, and while some would say that made her worse than the people she hung around with, Amity saw it as the only thing her conscious would allow, without right out punching Boscha in the face anyways.

When they were younger, Amity was the de facto leader of the group, calling out the shots, and despite never being directly mean to people, they still feared her. Her parents were the richest, she always had the newest stuff, she was top of the class in basically everything she did, and everyone knew this.

Before going into the sixth form, she was the captain of the rugby team, fast, short and strong, she was perfect for the role, even against the bigger girls on other teams.

A lot of people made the assumption that Amity had all of these things because her parents bribed teachers to give her good grades, and that she had the best coach in the country train her, but the fact was, her parents weren’t even that interested in her life.

For the most part, they ignored her, no congratulations when the team won big games, or when she was awarded best academic achievement for three years in a row, it seemed like the most attention they gave her was when she messed up, slandering their image in some way, shape or form.

To Alastor, that meant something like, getting into a fight, or getting into serious trouble with the school, anything that people may assume as him being a bad father.

On the other hand, to Odalia, slandering the Blight name went from murder, to her simply sleeping in late on a weekend, and yet Amity was still sure that her mother would chew her out more for sleeping in late than she would for any crime she could commit, so when Amity got home on Monday night, after her mother had received a phone call from a teacher saying that Amity had been pushed over in the hallways by Boscha, her mother assumed that Amity must have started it.

“I cannot believe you, after everything your father and I have done for you, this is how you decide to repay us?” It was a sentence Amity was more than used to hearing, and she knew that her mother was not looking for a response. “Well?” She carried on, “have you got anything to say to us?”

“Sorry mother, it won’t happen again,” Amity said, her voice monotone, trying not to express the disdain in her voice.

“It better not, now, Boshca’s mother has informed me of her going away for the weekend, I’m assuming you’re going to be spending the weekend at her house then?” It wasn’t a question, her mother was daring her to refuse the invite, to make Odalia look like she had raised a rude, inconsiderate child.

“Yes mother, I will be spending the weekend at Boscha’s if that is okay?” She knew her mother would say yes, but she also knew that she would get yelled at if she didn’t make it seem like it was a question.

“I guess you can, since you asked nicely, now, go, the maids will call you for dinner when it’s ready,” Amity was all but happy to basically run up to her room, nearly slamming her door in her attempt to get away from her mother as quick as possible.

It wasn’t even the worst interaction they’d had, at least her mother hadn’t insulted her this time. So why do I feel like shit? She thought, lying down on her bed.

Hopefully tomorrow would be better, and at least her mother didn’t find out she snuck out, right? It could be worse, just hold on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been thinking of doing a like, medieval, royals, whatever au after I've finished writing this one, anyone be interested in that?
> 
> Think Merlin but gayer and I'm an anarchist instead of someone who supports the monarchy


	8. Painful Memories (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Party time!!! though, dont get your hopes up, if the titles anything to go off, this isn't the happiest of chapters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we're at about the mid point of the fic, after this chapter theres going to be a time jump to the week before the half term break in April, so, a kinda big time jump, I may do another fic in this series about the stuff that happens inbetween that time, but it isn't really plot relevant, and yeah

Finally, it was Friday. Eda had given Luz her phone back, and let her go to the party as long as she promised not to smoke when she was there, which Luz had begrudgingly agreed to. She knew Eda was also still mad at Lilith for what happened, and it was a big change for both of them. She didn’t have to be happy about it, she just had to deal with it.

Amity pulled up outside Luz’s house at 7pm sharp. Both of them were meant to stay over at Boscha’s, but Luz had packed her keys just in case. She trusted Amity to not prank her during the night, but she didn’t trust anyone else who was going to be at the party. Worst case scenario, she’d walk home.

“Ready for the shit show?” Amity asked as Luz got into the car.

“Hell yeah, Imma see what I can get away with while she’s drunk,” Luz laughed, as she was only half joking.

It was common knowledge that Boscha was rich, so it wasn’t like she would notice if a couple of her things went missing.

“Yeah yeah, if you get caught I am not covering your ass,” Amity laughed.

“Oh, thinking about my ass are we Miss Blight?”

“Shut up Noceda, I can kick you out of my car right here.”

“Yeah, but you won’t,” they both knew she wouldn’t, they had grown close over the past couple days, and while Luz was sure that before they’d properly met, Amity would have no trouble shoving her out of the car, possibly while it was moving.

“Do you have any other jackets?” Amity asked, changing the conversation.

Luz was wearing basically what she wore everyday, with a Bi pride t-shirt on now, but still with the same yellow flannel and army jacket.

“Nah, not really, my uh, my old house burned down over the summer, it’s the reason I’m living with Eda.”

“Shit Luz, sorry for bringing it up,” Amity sighed, wanting to comfort Luz, but not knowing how.

Luz on the other hand, looked as if she wanted to say something, but quickly changed her mind, “nah, it’s fine, it was a couple months ago, no one really got hurt, well, no one important,” her face had gone dark, and Amity decided to change the subject.

“So, what do you think you got on the homework?” She quickly asked, shocking Luz.

“Uh, I dunno, probably not that good honestly, but hey, better than not turning it in at all. Definitely got better than usual thanks to your help Blight,” Amity flushed red at that, but if Luz noticed, she didn’t say anything.

The first thing Luz noticed when they pulled up outside of Boscha’s house was that it was huge. Like, stupidly massive.

There were loads of cars parked down the street, and loud music she could hear from down the driveway.

“You ready for this Noceda?” Amity said, looking over at her friend. It was clear neither of them wanted to go in, but they would both deal with it for their friend.

“Hell yeah, come on, if we wait there’ll be no sleazy guys to hit on us,” Luz joked, pulling Amity by the arm.

The house was full, to the point it seemed almost small when they got in. That would be, other than the fact that it took the girls almost ten minutes to wade through the sea of people to get to where the drinks were.

“You drinking tonight?” Luz asked, grabbing a can of cider off the side.

“Yeah, my parents aren’t expecting me home, and what else am I meant to do? Make small talk?” She laughed slightly at her joke, following in Luz’s lead of grabbing a can. It was a lot safer than the weird crate of ‘punch’ that was set out on a table.

The party was fairly boring for the two girls, Amity was pulled aside by some people from school, leaving Luz to her own devices.

She was on her second can of Cider, but the party was getting louder, and the men there handsier, and so she sat outside. It was freezing, but she would have much rather been out there than inside.

The Riegel family was easily the second richest in the town, the Blights being the only ones richer than them, so it almost didn’t surprise Luz that there were three ping pong tables on the patio.

There were a couple other people outside, sitting around a bonfire, talking, and a couple of them playing a small game of pingpong.

They noticed Luz, and asked if she wanted to join in a game.

They had obviously had more to drink than she had, but she also wasn’t good at table tennis, preferring to spend PE hiding from teachers, or doing the bare minimum she had to so she wouldn’t get in trouble.

They play for a few hours, and by then the party has died down, so Luz wishes her new friends goodbye as she goes to look for Amity.

The house is still fairly crowded, and no one knows where Amity is.

“Why the hell is this place so big?” Luz muttered, jogging up the stairs to find her friend.

She checks three rooms before she finds Amity, curled up in a corner, crying softly.

“Amity?” Luz asks softly from the doorway, fearing the worst.

“Oh,” Amity sniffs, “hey Luz, what’s up?” She forces a weak smile that Luz can see straight through.

“Not much, just checking if you were okay was all.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay, just,” she sighed, “I’m sorry Luz.”

“What?” Luz was taken aback, there was nothing Amity had done that would warrant an apology, so why was she offering her one.

“I lied to you Luz, and I know it’s not that big, but,” she sniffed again, and Luz walked over, closing the door behind her.

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m sure you had a good reason for it.”

“I’m scared Luz,” Amity whispered, Luz almost couldn’t hear her. “What if they find out? I haven’t talked to them in so long, they probably hate me, I just…” She was hyperventilating now.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, calm down, look, I’m here,” Luz said, rubbing small circles into Amity’s back.

“Fuck!” Amity yelled, punching the wall behind her, before dissolving into soft whimpers.

“You know, when I first moved in with Eda, I was scared,” Luz said softly, “I’d never moved house before, and even though I’d been at boarding school, my house would always be there. Well, I say house, we just lived in a small apartment, it was nice, but let me tell you that Eda’s lucky that house was in her mother’s will, you rich people are really lucky,” she laughed, but there was no malice behind it.

“Why are you telling me this?” Amity asked weakly.

“It’s okay to be scared, you don’t have to tell me what you’re scared about, but I’m here for you, I promise Blight.”

“My siblings,” Amity finally said. “I lied to you about my siblings. I said they moved out, but my parents kicked them out, a couple years ago, it would have been the summer you stayed with Eda. They, uh, they both came out as gay, and my parents didn’t take it well. My mothers always been horrible, but, that was the first time I was truly scared of her,” she laughed weakly, “I guess that’s pretty dumb though, they weren’t even angry at me, so why was I scared?”

Looking up, Amity saw a pitiful look on Luz’s face.

“It’s fine, she’s not that bad, I mean, you must get into fights with your mam and with Eda all the time right? I know she loves me, and she’ll never hurt me, I just, I don’t know,” she sighed, slumping against the wall.

“I mean yeah, I’m like, full on ignoring Eda at the minute, but you shouldn’t be scared of them. Amity, I need you to promise me something.”

“Yeah?”

“If you ever need to get out of the house, or whatever, call me, and I promise I’ll help, no matter what, okay?”

“Okay, I, thank you Luz, you have no idea how much that means to me.”

“Yeah, of course, it’s no problem, what else are friends for?”

Yeah, friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember, shit gets darker after this chapter, as well as a pretty big time jump lol


	9. Happy Reunion/ Home shitty Home 2, electric boogaloo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luz manages to find some of Amity's old friends, but when she has to go home, things take a turn for the worse.
> 
> This takes place the April after last chapter, so I'm gonna do a series of just the shit that happened between then and now, also TW for child abuse and mentions of blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was kinda hard for me to write, mostly just because I couldn't get the flow of it right. But anyways, hope yall enjoy, and sorry this is late by my standards lmao

“I can’t believe it, only like, seven weeks before we’re finally out of this place for summer,” Luz sighed, slinging her arm over Amity’s shoulders.

They were in the park next to the school, since it was lunch time and neither of them had any classes for the rest of the day.

They had stopped having their after school study sessions, and instead started just hanging out, Luz showing Amity all the fun places to hang out.

“Yeah, you got any big plans for the summer?” Amity asked, opening the gate to the play area.

“Nah, not really, probably see my mam a lot more though, we’ll both have free time.”

“Yeah, does that mean I can finally meet the famous Camila Noceda?”

“Maybe, you got any plans Blight?”

“Nah, probably stay out of the house more though, my mam’s been insufferable lately, it’s like everything I do annoys the hell out of her, which isn’t abnormal, but it’s still annoying.”

“Doesn’t your dad do anything?” Luz sat down on the swing, and gestured for Amity to sit next to her.

“Nah, don’t get me wrong, he isn’t like her, only yells at me when he has to, but he doesn’t exactly stop Mrs Blight from dealing out justice,” she laughed slightly, though Luz knew it was forced.

“Oh!” Luz suddenly yelled, jumping up, “I have a present for you, pass me your phone.”

“I’m scared,” Amity smiled, handing over her phone.

Luz quickly typed something in, before the phone started ringing, like she was calling someone.

“I swear if you’re ordering pizza off my phone again…” Amity started, but was soon cut off by someone on the phone speaking.

“Hey mittens!” Someone yelled through the phone. Amity looked at the screen, and on it were two people she never thought she’d see again.

“Ed? Em?” She asked, carefully reaching out to grab her phone off Luz, “is that really you?”

“In the flesh, well, phone I guess, turns out we know Luz,” Em laughed.

“Oh my God, how have you guys been, I haven’t seen you in so long,” Amity gushed.

“One sec Amity, the phone connections really shit here,” Em said, Amity could see the sky above them, so they had to be outside.

“Where are you guys?” Amity asked, squinting at the phone.

“Turn around,” Ed smiled, and Amity nearly dropped the phone when she did.

They were much taller than they had been when they left, making Amity officially the youngest Blight.

“Ed, Em? Is that really you?” she asked, tears in her eyes.

“Hey mittens, long time no see,” Ed waved slightly, feeling awkward.

Em hung up the phone, and slid it in her pocket, while Luz carefully took Amity’s phone off her so she could run at her siblings.

They ended up talking for hours, catching up. The twins had an apartment a few streets away, and Ed was in the local university training to be a vet, whilst Em was studying theatre.

“So, what are you studying Mittens? Law or chemistry,” Em asked, knowing exactly what their mother would have forced her to study.

“Chemistry, biology, maths and English lit,” Amity sighed. It was no surprise that the girl was overworked, and as much as she loved the subjects, she really wished she could drop maths and do art with Luz. From what she had said it was fun, and Amity had always enjoyed it.

“Jeez mittens, is Odalia trying to kill you or something?” Ed laughed, “tell me honestly, how much sleep are you getting at night?”

Amity and Luz shared a look, they had spent plenty of nights up messaging eachother, or meeting up on the bridge at stupid hours, just so they could get out of their respective houses.

“I mean, it’s not like I just don’t sleep, and Luz introduced me to monster so I’m fine, really,” Amity insisted, putting her hands up.

The twins looked at her with raised eyebrows, before choosing to drop the subject, “okay, well, if you need to get out for a weekend, you can stay with us, okay? You can’t stay permanently, three college students can’t exactly raise a child,” Em laughed, before realising what she’d said.

“Three?” Luz asked, piping up for one of the first times in the conversation.

“Yeah, Em finally built up the courage to ask out Viney, not that you’d know her,” Ed laughed.

“I remember her, she moved in like, your guys’ last year, right?” Amity asked.

“Wait, Viney? As in Victoria Wells? Wears a fish hook earring, really into looking after animals?” Luz asked, sitting up.

“Yeah, you know her?” Em asked.

“Hell yeah I know her, we went to school together for like, a year and a half, didn’t know she finally moved, good for her.”

“Was this the one where you blew up the toilet?” Amity asked.

“You fuckin what?” The twins said at the same time.

“In my defence, it was an accident,” Luz tried to defend, which just sparked more questions. “Anyways!” she yelled, as the siblings were trying to pry answers out of her, “yeah, me and Viney were in detention together a lot, since the school was cheap and just shoved all the detention kids in one room, which was honestly a bad idea, the teacher always slept, so we just wandered about the school finding stuff to do.”

“Woah, I can’t believe she never told me,” Em said, “I mean she always said the school was shit but, yeah.”

“I don’t blame her honestly, wonder what happened to Jerbo and Barkus though,” Luz wondered outside.

“Oh, I can tell you that,” Ed smiled, “Jerbo is in my biology class, cause he’s studying some plant shit.”

“Herbology?” Amity asked.

“Yeah that one, anyways, we play video games together sometimes, Barkus comes along too, they study chemistry and do tarot cards, it’s pretty sick.”

“You mean they both kick your butt at mario kart and then you complain to me for twenty minutes on why we should get a switch in the apartment even though we’re poor college kids?” Em said, impassively.

“Yeah that,” he grumbled.

Amity’s phone started to ring, shocking all of them.

“Shit, it’s mum,” she muttered, before picking up.

“Where the hell are you?” her mother yelled down the phone, causing Amity to pull it away from her ear, “your tutoring ended an hour ago, if you were going to stay out you should have messaged me or your father you ungrateful child. We’ve been worried sick.”

“Sorry mother, I’m on my way home now, I got caught up walking Luz to her bus stop,” Amity tried to explain.

“Why are you walking her to her bus stop, you’re meant to tutor her and then come home, I don’t even know who this girl is, how do I know she’s good for you?”

“Mother, I’m nearly seventeen, I think I’m old enough to make my own friends without your permission,” Amity snapped, before going pale. That was definitely the wrong thing to say.

“We will talk about this when you get home young lady,” and, before Amity could say something, her mother hung up, leaving her with her best friend and her siblings staring at her.

“Sorry guys, I need to get home,” she muttered, before briskly walking out of the park.

“Mittens!” Edric called, causing Amity to turn, “call us if you need anything, okay?”

Amity shot a thumbs up, before jogging out of the park.

“I’m really worried about her,” Luz admitted quietly.

“Me too kid, me too,” Em agreed, patting her on the shoulder.

\----------------------------------------------------------------

“Mother?” Amity called, as she walked into the cold Blight manor. It honestly felt ten degrees colder inside than it did out, but maybe that was just because of Odalia’s aura affecting the whole house.

“Come in here Amity,” Odalia called from the living room, and Amity cursed internally, her mother only called her by her name when she was pissed.

“Hello mother,” Amity said, as she walked into the large room.

“Care to explain to me what that call was about, child?”

“I’m sorry mother, I shouldn’t have said that, it was a lapse of judgement and…” the sound of Odalia’s hand slapping her youngest child.

Amity fell to the floor, the wind had been knocked out of her from the shock.

“Well, you better not have a lapse of judgement again, should you?” Odalia said coldly.

The night of the party played over in her head;  
“It’s fine, she’s not that bad, I mean, you must get into fights with your mam and with Eda all the time right? I know she loves me, and she’ll never hurt me, I just, I don’t know,”

“You’re dismissed,” Amity didn’t wait a second before getting off the floor and running up the stairs.

Tears were pricking the corners of her eyes, and her cheek was burning in pain. Something wet rolled down her cheek, and she wasn’t sure if it was a tear or blood.

She was glad that her room had an en suite, as she could just run and hide in there, without the fear of having to see her father, or God forbid her mother.

Turning the light on in the small bathroom, she saw that her left cheek was swollen and red, with a heavily bleeding cut slashed across.

She cursed under her breath, her mother had backhanded her, which was bad enough, but what was worse was that she was left handed, meaning the diamonds on her wedding ring had slashed across her cheek.

Blood dripped slowly into the sink, and once again that night Amity thanked God that she kept a first aid kit in her room. She had never thought that her mother would hit her, let alone that the wound would be that bad if she did, but she knew that there wasn’t a bad reason to keep a first aid kit handy.

She quickly cleaned the cut with an alcohol wipe, and was grateful to see that under all the blood, the cut wasn’t that big, but she would still have to come up with a good excuse for it.

The cut was quite thin, but very painful, and would probably leave a scar.

Looking into the mirror, Amity finally let herself cry, hissing as the salt water from her tears got into the small cut.

It didn’t even hurt that much, but Amity felt like she was about to be sick.

There was a knock on her door, and she quickly wiped the tears away, stuck a pink plaster over the wound, and went to see who was there.

There was no one outside of her room, but there was a small envelope on the floor, with her mothers neat handwriting on the brown paper; “Luz Noceda” was all it said on the front.

Amity sighed, and supposed there weren’t many Luz’s in the area, so she chucked the envelope on her bed, deciding to read it later.

She didn’t sleep that night, and the brown envelope was taunting her, begging her to open it, but when she did, she almost wished she hadn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun dun!!!! but yee, I did warn you that this would get a bit darker so, whoops.
> 
> There's only a couple chapters left of this, and I'm already starting on 'the months we were together' which im definitely gonna change the name for cause that sounds like a self insert wattpad fic from 2011 lol
> 
> and since someone asked, my instagrams alien_arts_1303, so if you wanna bully me on there thats chill lmao, hope yall are enjoying Back in School


	10. The Benefits of Communication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amity confronts Luz on what she read in the file
> 
> TW for minor character death, fire, mentions of sexual assault and poison. These sound really bad but they're mostly mentioned in passing so, uhhh, don't worry lmao

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was gonna wait to post this, but I really liked how it turned out and I have no impulse control so

“Amity, wait up!” Luz called after Amity’s Biology lesson on Friday. They both only had one lesson off before their week long break, and Amity had been ignoring her all day.

It wasn’t just that they didn’t have any lessons together, but Amity was going out of her way to stay away from Luz, and she wasn’t even being subtle about it.

“Luz, move, I have to get to maths,” Amity grumbled, trying to push past the taller girl.

“Oh hell no, you’re not going anywhere, you’re gonna tell me exactly why you’re avoiding me, and what the hell happened to your cheek?” Luz gasped, grabbing Amity’s chin to try and get a better look at her injured cheek.

It was starting to bruise, and had a plaster on it.

“I’m fine, it’s from a cat, now can you please just let me go, I don’t want to talk to you,” Amity tried once again to push past Luz, but to no luck.

“Oh hell no, you’re coming with me,” Luz snapped, grabbing her arm and pulling her into a nearby empty classroom.

“Luz, what the fuck, we both have classes to get to!” Amity yelled as Luz let go of her.

“Okay, you can go as soon as you tell me what the fuck is wrong,” Luz crossed her arms, leaning against the door so Amity couldn’t leave.

“I’ll scream,” Amity threatened.

“And risk getting in trouble for disrupting a class, as if,” Luz scoffed.

“Better than getting in trouble for skipping class,” Amity countered.

“Oh yeah, like perfect Amity Blight is going to get in trouble for missing one class all year, as if.”

Amity flushed red, not denying the claim.

“Come on Amity, what did I do?” Luz practicality begged. It was hard going from having someone to talk to during her free lessons, to basically being a loner again, and she hated to admit it, but she missed Amity, there was something about her that gave her butterflies, and she’d never felt like that with someone before.

“Fine, you wanna know what you did, you lied to me Luz, after you said you wouldn’t, after you said that we could be honest to eachother, you fucking lied,” Amity snapped, getting right into Luz’s face.

“What the hell are you on about?” Luz scoffed, pushing Amity back to get her out of her face.

“How about the reason you were kicked out of your first school?”

“What?”

“My mother got a hold of your record, you weren’t kicked out because of some gory incident, you sexually assaulted another girl.”

“Where the fuck did you read that,” Luz laughed, though it was bitter, not full of joy like it usually was.

“Your record, it said you attacked another girl, forcefully kissed her in the PE block during school!”

Luz laughed harder this time, tears pricking her eyes, “you believe that, huh?”

Amity took a step back, “of course I did, records don’t lie.”

“You’d think that, but what actually happened was that someone took a picture of me kissing my GIRLFRIEND, and blackmailed us with it. What I didn’t know was that she preferred her reputation over me, because she told her mother that I had attacked her, and she got me kicked out.”

“So why did you lie about it then?” Amity snapped.

“Because I barely fucking knew you, and I didn’t want those roumors to resurface, you already said that you’d heard that I was a fucking predator, if I said the truth you would have just believed it.”

“Okay then, what about the boarding school, the strict Catholic one?”

“What about it?” Luz was leaning against the door now, bored with the conversation.

“You lied about that too,” Amity stated.

“Oh please, tell me how I lied Blight.”

“It wasn’t just a school, it was a military school, because of your behaviour.”

“Yeah?”

“You never mentioned that.”

“Oh sorry, you want me to give you the address? I’m sure your mother would love to send you to a place like that. You know, from what you’ve told me about her, on how much you hate her for assuming things about you with no evidence, you sure are acting a lot like that. Should I start calling you Odalia from now on?”

“Oh, you wanna mention mothers, how about how you lied about yours?”

“What are you on about?” Luz stood up straight now, hoping Amity wasn’t about to say what she thought she would.

“You said your house burned down.”

“It did? What does this have to do about my mother?” please don’t say it; Luz thought, growing tenser by the millisecond. 

“Yeah, you didn’t say that your fucking mother was in it!” Amity yelled, barely noticing when Luz’s face went white, or when she started shaking. “I spent all this time asking when I was going to meet her, and you lead me on, did you think I was going to judge you for it! That I would stop hanging out with you because your fucking mother died!” Amity was screaming now.

“Stop,” Luz muttered.

“All these months, all of these fucking months, when I thought I could relate to you, that you had a basically neglectful mother, thinking that she didn’t care about you, saying that you deserved better, and you didn’t once think to correct me.” Amity couldn’t hear Luz’s sobs from where she was ranting, and she didn’t see the tears falling down her face.

“Amity,” she gasped, begging for her to stop.

“You wanna know what the fuck happened to my face! My mother slapped me, because she found out I was hanging out with you, you, you fucking liar, I trusted you, and you fucking lied to me, how could you just,” seeing movement out of the corner of her eye, Amity turned to see Luz in a crumpled ball on the floor, wheezing for a breath. “Shit, Luz!” Amity cried, running over.

Luz felt like she couldn’t breathe, like she was in the fire again, hot flames attacking her, the thick smoke cutting off her breathing, she had to find her mother.

“Luz!” The yell seemed distant, like it wasn’t there, it was just in her head.

The floor creaked below her, and she knew she had to move. There wasn’t a chance to even grab anything from her room, to save any of her memories. She’d only been back a couple of days, she couldn’t even pack anything.

Luz looked out of her window, to try to call for help. A tall, shadowy figure was running away from the house, a sigil on the back telling her exactly who it was. 

The emperor's coven was this weird cult type thing, almost like Scientology, in the fact that a lot of places classed it as a real religion at this point.

It was run by a crazy old guy, named Belos, or at least, that’s what he got his followers to call him. He claimed to only accept the best of the best, but Luz highly doubted that was the case, he just wanted his followers to feel some sort of elitism.

He ran a small community in a block of apartments, where he was (obviously) the landlord, making people pay him stupid amounts to stay in the building, even stay near him, and his followers would do anything for him.

Eda had told Luz stories of when she was a girl, growing up in the community, her sister and her fighting to get onto the emperor’s good side, and how Lilith had betrayed her, trying to poison her the night before the fight, causing her to puke in front of the entire audience, the fact that what Lilith did was probably the cause of her chronic pain later in life.

She was rushed to the hospital, and banished from her home, while Lilith was promoted to Belos’ closest group at only twenty.

They had both waited until Eda was eighteen to try out, and though Eda hadn’t even wanted to join, especially if it risked her sisters chances of getting in, Lilith had looked so happy when she realised they could both try.

“Lilith!” Luz choked out, coughing violently on the smoke.

She didn’t even turn around.

Luz ran out of her room, but the hallways were filled with even more flames, and as she grabbed the handle of her mothers room, she was suddenly brought back to earth.

She blinked once, then twice, and finally her eyes stopped looking dead.

“Holy shit Luz, are you okay?” Amity was crouched in front of her, hands on her shoulders, staring right into her eyes.

Luz tried to back away from her, but instead whacked her head off the door.

“Shit Luz, let me help you.”

“Leave me alone,” Luz muttered.

“What was that?” Amity cocked her head, sure she heard the other girl wrong.

“I said leave me alone Amity!” Luz yelled, “did it ever cross your mind that maybe there was a reason that I never mentioned the fact that I saw my fucking mother die infront of me! Maybe because it was traumatic. Yes, I lied to you, and I’m sorry, but for fucks sake Amity, maybe next time don’t scream at someone until they have a fucking panic attack, just ask them.”

“Luz, I didn’t mean, I’m sorry,” Amity breathed out, not daring to look at Luz.

“Yeah, sure you are, just, do me a favour, and leave me alone.” and with that, Luz got up off the floor, and walked out of the sixth form, leaving Amity on the floor of the empty classroom.

Amity felt like she was going to be sick. She’d really fucked up this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> womp womp, thats a fun way to start the half term. Also everyone needs to know that I nearly wrote communism instead of communication lmao


	11. Incident at the Blight Manor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amity gets home after her fight with Luz, and shit goes downhill fast from there.
> 
> Huge trigger warning for abuse, so if you're sensitive to that, don't read this chapter, like, seriously, I'll put a summary at the end notes for anyone that needs it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's like half four in the morning and this took me so long to write cause it was like, really hard to portray it in a realistic way, and if some of the end writing doesnt make sense, I'm sorry, but i'm like falling asleep at my laptop lol

“Amity, could you come in here please?” Odalia called from the living room.

Amity had come home at the correct time, as to not let her mother know that she had skipped her last lesson.

“Yes mother? How can I help you?” She said, trying to give away nothing that would have signified her crying on the way home.

“I got a very distressing call from the school today, your math teacher was very worried when you didn’t show up to her lesson, without even an email saying where you were. No one knew where you were, infact, no one had seen you since after your fifth lesson when they saw you talking to that Noceda girl.”

Amity paled, of course her mother knew.

“Sorry mother,” Amity muttered.

Odalia stood up, glaring down at her daughter, who couldn’t help but shrink down. She grabbed her daughters shirt, pulling her up so they were eye level.

“You better be, I cannot believe I raised such a disappointment of a child,” Odalia scoffed, before throwing Amity to the floor.

She collapsed, pain shooting up her wrist. She’d definitely at least sprained it, and she couldn’t help but whimper in pain.

Odalia’s face morphed into a sick grin as she heard her daughter whimper, and she squatted down, to look at her child once more.

“Awh, are you in pain?” She cooed, faking sympathy.

Amity didn’t answer, just glared at her mother, who slapped her in the face again.

“Do not glare at your mother you brat.”

Amity was trying to breathe now, it’s like her whole body was shutting down, she wanted to run, but she was frozen in place.

Odalia stood up, “this is only a minor set back, perhaps it’s that class you share with her, what was it? English? Well, I’ll talk to the head of sixthform in the morning, I’m sure she will let you drop it, especially since it is so obviously affecting your performance in other classes. Maybe I can talk to her about getting her expelled since she is obviously a bad influence.”

“No,” Amity wheezed out.

“Oh, no? Don’t tell me you’re actually still friends with her, after you found out she has been lying to you this whole time? Oh child, you’re weaker than I thought.”

“We’re not friends, but please, don’t get her kicked out again, please,” Amity was practically begging now, her lungs were burning with every word she forced out, but she couldn’t let her mother do this.

Odalia kicked Amity in the stomach, knocking whatever air that remained, out of her lungs. Amity gagged, feeling like she was going to puke.

“What a disgrace to the Blight name, you can’t even handle a small amount of pain,” she sneered, and something inside Amity snapped.

She painfully pushed herself up, shocking her mother, who took a small step back, scared of the fire in her daughter's eyes. “What are you doing?” Odalia snapped, but Amity didn’t answer, she just slapped her mother across the face with all the anger that had built up over the past few days, adrenaline pumping through her veins. And her mother hit the floor.

“You’re right, I am a disgrace to the Blight name, and I’m happy about that, because if being a Blight means turning out like you, then I’d rather have no family,” she snarled, glaring down at her mother with all the hate she could muster.

Amity went to walk out the room, but as she got to the door, she heard her mother yell after her.

“Where are you going to go, no one else wants to look after you, and if you walk away, you will never be allowed back here again, you hear me?”

Instead of responding, she just flipped her mother off, before running upstairs and packing an overnight bag. While she packed, she called the number Luz had put into her phone the other day.

It rang a few times, and Amity was scared they wouldn’t pick up.

“Hey mittens, you okay?” Edric’s cheery voice rang around the small quiet room, Amity choked back a sob when she heard her brother's voice, “Amity?” He sounded panicked now.

“I..I can’t stay here, she, she,” Amity sobbed out.

There was talking down the line, as Amity sobbed in her room, “okay, Jerbo’s letting us borrow his car, we’ll be at the manor soon, we love you Amity, we’ll be as quick as we can.”

“Wait!” Amity nearly yelled, “please stay on the line,” she nearly begged.

“Okay, I will, I’m gonna pass you over to Emira okay?”

Amity nodded, before realising that her brother couldn’t see her, “yeah, that okay.”

“Hey sis, you doing okay?” Emira said, she had always been better at dealing with emotions than her brother had, but no one knew how to react in this situation.

“Can you bring ice packs,” Amity whimpered, knowing she wouldn’t be able to get to the kitchen without passing her mother.

“Yeah, of course,” there was more talking on Emira’s side, and she could have sworn she heard someone say the word ‘murder’ in reference to Odalia, “do you wanna talk about it?”

“Not right now, I just, I just wanna sleep,” Amity admitted, tossing some more clothes into her suitcase.

She packed her electronics, and her school stuff. Her bag was heavy, she’d brought home most of her school stuff to study over the half term, and she was regretting it now.

She thought of leaving it behind, but she couldn’t, she needed all of it.

She swapped out some clothes, only bringing five tops, a couple pairs of trousers, her favorite skirt, her pyjamas, and the hoodie Luz had given her earlier in the year.

Despite their fight, she still held onto it, whether it was the memories that belonged to it, or that even after what happened, she couldn’t deny her feelings for Luz.

She had to make it up to her.

Amity tried to go down the stairs as quietly as she could, with her phone on mute so that Ed and Em didn’t accidentally alert their mother to her presence. This was harder than it seemed, as her wrist was still in a lot of pain from when she landed on it earlier, and her bags were heavy, so when she accidentally dropped her suitcase full of clothes and books, it wasn’t much of a surprise.

“Amity? Is that you?” Her mother called from the living room, sounding almost upset. Amity didn’t respond, but her mother must have taken it as a yes, because she soon came bounding into the room. “Oh Amity, I am so sorry, I don’t know what came over me, come on, let's get you sorted.”

“N..No” Amity pushed her mother away, crying out softly as a shock of pain ran through her arms.

There was a buzz in her pocket, and she went to pull her phone out, expecting her cousins to be asking if she was okay, but her mother grabbed it off her first.

“Who are you on call to?” her mother hissed, turning the phone off, “you’ll get this back once you learn some manners.”

“Give me that back,” Amity growled.

“Oh, getting bold are we? Such a pity,” her mother smiled, it was evil, and Amitt couldn’t helpt but cower under her gaze.

“Please be here soon,” she muttered.

Odalia grabbed Amity’s face, causing her to cry out in pain as pressure was put on the bruise and cut she had caused the night before. 

“A lady speaks up and doesn’t mutter, that is especially true for a Blight,” she tightened her grip, and Amity nearly screamed.

Her mother was strong, there was no denying that, Amity had been pulled onto her toes, and while she doubted that her mother could pick her up, she could easily do more damage.

Amity was about to respond, when the front door of the house swung open, Edric, Emira and Viney were all standing there, Emira with her key in her hand.

Odalia dropped amity, who fell onto the floor with a light “oof” but thankfully didn’t fall onto her injured hand again.

“Em, grab mitten’s bag, Viney, go help Amity,” Edric said, glaring his mother down, daring her to attack Amity again.

“Mother, I hope you know that I’m not dumb, I recorded everything that happened over the phone with mittens, and if you don’t want a scandal, you’d hand her over right now,” Edric said, looking his mother in her eyes.

“Psh, she’s not worth it, take her, just get out of my house, if any of you set foot on my property again, I’ll have you arrested,” Odalia said in return, turning and walking back into the living room.

“You okay kid?” Viney asked, offering her hand to Amity.

“Yeah, yeah I’m okay,” Amity grabbed the outstretched hand with her good one, letting the other girl pull her to her feet.”

“I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Viney, your sister’s girlfriend and your brother's roommate,” she offered, trying to keep the conversation away from what had just happened. Viney may have been trained to help animals, but something they taught was that humans and animals had similar body language, especially when they were scared.

Amity was curled in on herself, shoulders hunched like the weight of the world had been lifted off them.

“God mittens, did you pack your entire room in here?” Emira laughed as she picked up the suitcase.

“Mostly my school books and some clothes, I can carry it if you want, I just..” she went to move forward, reaching out with her left hand before wincing in pain.

“Hold up, lemme see that,” Viney said, putting her hands out for Amity to rest her injured arm on.

The arm and her wrist were wollen, already purple and black.

“Shit kid, that doesn’t look good, we should get you to a hospital or something,” Viney commented, moving the arm slightly, which caused Amity to cry out in pain.

“Come on, we’re leaving,” Edric decided, walking out to the car.

Jerbo was sat in the driver's seat, drumming his hands idly on the steering wheel.

“There you guys are,” he said, noticing everyone approaching the car.

“Yeah, sorry we took so long, we had to make sure mittens was okay,” Ed said, taking the suitcase off his sister and putting it in the boot, along with Amity’s school bag.

“We heading back to the apartment then?” Jerbo asked, turning the key and starting up the car.

“Actually,” Viney said, clipping Amity in so she didn’t hurt her hand, “we need to go to the hospital, I think Amity broke her arm.”

“Aight, to the hospital it is. Amity, any song requests?” he asked, looking in the rearview mirror at the new passenger.

Emira sat to one side of her, Viney on the other, and Edric was sat up front.

“Uh, I guess I like mother mother, or girl in red,” she shrugged,

Viney and Emira whooped, as Emira grabbed the aux cord and plugged her phone into it.

“I knew we were related,” she laughed, as October by girl in red started to play.

Amity blushed red, and despite everything that had happened that day, she still felt happy.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was one in the morning by the time they got out of the hospital, Amity’s arm in a pink cast, with drawings and signatures already from the whole gang.

“Who’s up for McDonalds!” Edric yelled as they all headed to the car.

There were yells of agreement, and Jerbo tossed Edric the keys, saying that he can drive, since Jerbo was way too tired.

After grabbing their food, they piled back into the dorm room, Jerbo heading straight to Edric’s room to sleep, while the rest of them stayed in the livingroom to have a Disney movie marathon, something the twins did to help Amity cheer up after a stressful day when they were younger.

While she didn’t like being treated like a child anymore, it was almost relaxing to act like they used to, before all hell broke loose, and they found out the real monsters that were their parents. No one asked Amity what had happened that night, all of them having a rough idea from the phone call, and when the hospital staff had asked what happened, they lied and said Amity had fallen off Edric’s skateboard while they were messing about.

All of them had noticed the cut on Amity’s cheek, and how she flinched whenever someone got close to it, and since three out of the four people who were there that night walked in and saw what Odalia was doing, it wasn’t hard to understand why that was her gut reaction.

Never in her life had Amity been more thankful that she had a week off school for the worst of the bruising to go down, and for her to come up with a believable story on what happened to her arm.

It was that night that she made a plan, she was going to message Mrs Weddel, and request to change her subjects, completely dropping maths, and swapping her chemistry course for art. It was a long shot, and she wasn’t completely sure that the teacher would say yes, but God damn it was she going to do everything she could to enjoy her last year of sixth form, maybe even two years if she had to re-do year twelve.

And, if she did, then she would pick her own subjects, and not let her parents control her life any longer.

Just as she was drifting off to sleep in the middle of Big Hero 6, her phone pinged with an email notification.

Odalia Blight had transferred £250 into her bank account, attached was the note, “tell no one, and this will keep up every month until you turn 18”. 

Odalia may have won the battle, but now Amity had something to hold over her head, and she was going to win the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SUMMARY- Amity gets home, and her mother starts screaming at her about skipping class and hanging out with Luz after everything that happened, and then basically beats the shit out of her. Amity goes upstairs to pack, and calls her siblings to come get her, and while she's going back downstairs to escape, she drops her suitcase cause she fell and hurt her wrist like real bad  
> Odalia comes and grabs her, but Viney, Emira and Edric come to the rescue, and then they go to the hospital with Jerbo who was driving, Amity has a broken arm, then they go home and watch Disney movies. Amity gets £250 put into her bank account every month if she promises to keep what happened quiet, and Amity starts having an idea


	12. Runaways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amity goes to apologise to Luz at Eda's house, but when she gets there she finds out that she has been missing for over a week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I was originally gonna have a chapter in between last and this one, where Amity dyes her hair, but instead I have decided to, after this is all written up, have an actually beta read story, with more chapters that still relate to the plot, but aren't plot heavy like all of these have been.
> 
> There's so many more characters I want to introduce and plot points I want to add more information to, like the whole cult thing and Lilith living with Eda and Luz after everything that happened

After the week break, Amity still wasn’t ready to go back to school. Everything was different now, she had different coloured hair thanks to her siblings, it was mostly mint green, lighter than theirs, since she mixed hers with conditioner to get a more pastel colour.

She’d stolen some of Emira’s clothes to wear, not wanting to wear the clothes her mother had bought her. They’d come to an agreement that, since Amity was getting paid, as long as she helped out around the house, she could stay as long as she needed, and they would forge her mothers signatures on any document that needed them, just as they had done three years prior when they were in a similar situation.

It was Sunday, and after everything that had happened, Amity knew she couldn’t go back to school without at least trying to make up with Luz.

She roughly remembered the way to Eda’s house from the school, and so she started walking. It was a longer walk than she thought it would be, and thanks to the hot weather, by the time she got there she was sweating.

She knocked on the door, before stepping back, wringing her hands together whilst waiting for a response.

There were a few things crashing, before a familiar voice swore, and the door swung open, revealing not Eda, or Luz, but…

“Miss Clawthorn?” Amity asked, taking a step back in surprise.

Infront of her was a slightly more tired looking of her previous mentor from when she was younger. Miss Clawthorn had helped Amity pass her GCSEs as a tutor her parents hired when Amity’s grades started slipping after her siblings had run away.

“Amity! What a surprise to see you here, I was expecting Luz,” Lilith said, looking the child up and down. “You changed your hair, and, oh my, what happened to your arm?” She ushered Amity into the cluttered house, and sat her down on the sofa in the front room, where Eda’s cat, King, jumped straight onto her lap.

“Sorry Miss Clawthorn, but I’m actually here to see Luz, did she say when she would get back?” Amity asked, stroking King with her good hand.

“Funny joke kid,” a voice said from behind her, causing Amity to jump.

“Edalyn, don’t scare the child,” Lilith chided, causing Eda to laugh.

“You’re one to talk, anyways, kid, I know Luz spent the last week at your manor, what, is she gonna jump out or something, cause your tricks won’t work on me kid,” Eda laughed, looking around the room, as if Luz was about to magically appear.

“What?” Amity asked, freezing.

“Yeah, I may have a bad memory kid, but I know where my kid goes, most of the time. She told me on Friday that she was spending the week at yours, and she’d be back sometime next week, or something. Can’t blame her, wanting to get out of here for a bit, as you can probably tell, it’s a bit cluttered since Lilly moved in.”

“For the last time Edalyn, you were the one who suggested I move in here, there was enough money left in my inheritance that I could easily get a small apartment.”

“And let Belos trick you into joining him again, ha! As if, you’re stuck here now, think of it as a punishment.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, whatever this is, but Luz wasn’t at mine last week,” Amity cut them off.

“What?” Eda was the first to respond, her face going white, “no no, that’s not true, she’s been texting me all week, giving me updates on what you two were doing, though, she didn’t mention your hair, or your arm, kid what happened?” Eda was finally taking in Amity’s appearance. She was beaten up, wearing clothes clearly too big for her, and the way she sat was all curled in on herself, similar to how Luz had been when she first came to live with Eda.

“It’s not important what happened to me, we need to find Luz, when, when did she leave?” Amity was panicking now. If Luz had left on the Friday, then it was her fault, God, what if Luz was hurt? All because Amity had made the dumb decision to listen to her mother.

“She came home early on Friday, but she seemed fine, packed her bag, saying she was staying at yours for the week and she’d message me, I didn’t think anything of it, she’s stayed at Willow’s before, I thought it was just like that. Shit, I should have called your mother or something,” Eda was also panicking, walking over slowly to sit on the sofa, in the same spot Amity had just gotten up from.

“No, no, it was a good thing you didn’t call Odalia, she hates Luz,” Amity told her, before muttering “and me,” under her breath. Eda didn’t seem to catch it, but Lilith definitely did.

“Okay, instead of beating ourselves up about this, lets think, where could Luz have gone?” Lilith said, before either of the other two could bury themselves further into a pit of despair.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s a good idea, I’ll call Mr park and his husband and Gus’s parents, baby Blight, you hung out with her a lot, go look in places you used to go, if we don’t find her by the end of the day,” Eda sighed, “we’ll call the police.”

“Okay, okay, I can do that, but uh, please don’t call me Blight,” Amity asked, and both Eda and Lilith looked at her weird.

Eda shrugged, “aight, Mitty was it?” she asked, smiling.

“Uh, Amity, just Amity is good,” she smiled, before gesturing to the door, “I’ll just go, and uhh, yeah,” she practically ran out of the house, trying to get her thoughts in order.

“Okay, there weren’t many places she liked to go, so this won’t be too hard, right?” She thought out loud, heading towards the town centre.

She was right, there weren’t many places that Luz liked to hang out, but when the sun started to set, and she still had no idea where Luz could be, she started to panic.

Eda had said that she’d been messaging her, messaging her about Amity specifically, meaning that it was unlikely that she had been kidnapped, since how would a kidnapper know who the hell Amity was?

She was walking by the river on the town side, when she finally realized where Luz would be. It was so obvious.

The argument they had gotten into involved her mother, meaning Luz had to be somewhere that would remind her of Camila Noceda, though the place she thought was a while away, and Eda was sure to call the police sooner rather than later.

Her phone rang twice before Eda picked up, “have you found her?” she asked hurriedly, almost begging that Amity would say yes.

“No, but I have a good idea of where she could be, if she isn’t there, I’ll call you, I promise.”

“Okay kid, I trust you.” 

The line went dead, and Amity practically ran across the bridge, to the cemetery that Camila Noceda had been buried in almost a year prior.


	13. Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amity finds Luz and they talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is up later than usual, I spent like the entire day asleep cause my friend got diagnosed with covid meaning I have to stay off for two weeks, which is so boring, lmao.

To say that the graveyard was creepy would be an understatement. Even with the relaxing sunset that gave everything a pink glow, Amity couldn’t help but shudder.

Even when her grandad had died a few years back, he was cremated, so Amity had never had to go to a graveyard before, but then again, she guessed that it would be kind of disrespectful to cremate Camila after what happened.

The graveyard was basically empty, but still Amity could see a figure with long, brown hair and a red beanie kneeling in front of a grave.

Approaching slowly, Amity could hear them speaking softly in Spanish, and she had to refrain herself from interrupting.

“Lo siento mama,” Luz said, bowing her head, before standing up and coming practically face to face with Amity. “Gah!” she yelled, nearly falling backwards, “Amity? What are you doing here?” Luz looked exhausted, and Amity guessed that it was the only reason she hadn’t been screamed at yet.

“You disappeared, I was worried for you, Eda and Lilith are looking for you,” Amity said, not looking Luz in the eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Luz’s voice was barely above a whisper, and Amity could practically hear the tears behind it .

“Luz, no, none of us are angry!” Amity insisted, walking closer to her.

“I didn’t mean, I just, Eda thinks I’m getting better, that I’m not still grieving, but I miss her, and having to see Lilith, see the person who caused it, every single day, I just can’t,” she sobbed, releasing all the tears that had built up over the past week.

“Oh Luz, it’s okay,” Amity reached out, like she wanted to hug her, but she couldn’t, not after what happened, Luz needed to forgive her first.

“I’m sorry for lying to you Amity, I just, I didn’t want you to treat me how Eda does, I don’t want to be the grieving girl who lost her mother, I just want to be Luz.”

“And you are, you are still the funny, smart, kind girl I have been so lucky to get to know over these past months, and the fact that you’re grieving changes nothing, except for the fact that you can talk to me whenever you need to.”

“Why aren’t you mad at me? I disappeared, I lied to everyone, and you’re acting like everything is fine!” Luz screamed, and Amity had to remind herself that she wasn’t with her mother anymore, and that this was okay. Luz wouldn’t hurt her.

“Look, over the past week, I’ve had a lot of time to think, and, Luz, I am mad at you, for lying, for all of that, but I am also proud of you,” Luz looked at her in disbelief, before she carried on, “you have managed to stay strong all of these months after what happened, no one would have blamed you if you took a year off school, or even a couple months, but instead you came in practically every day, you even managed to get your grades up in a subject I know you hate, you are one of the strongest people I know, and I know that everything isn’t fine, but I’m so relieved that you’re okay, because I couldn’t live with myself if I knew something had happened to you because of me.”

“It wasn’t because of you,” Luz muttered, causing Amity to give her a disbelieving look. “Okay, it was slightly because of you,” she laughed, “but no, I’ve been playing it pretty safe all things considered, this graveyard is surprisingly empty ninety percent of the time.”

“Where have you even been sleeping? You’ve been gone a whole week, surely you haven’t stayed up the whole time.”

“Okay, don’t get mad, but you remember that clearing up in the creek we found in December?”

“Luz!”

“No one disturbed me and there were like, five exits I could have taken if someone found me.”

“Jesus Christ Luz, look, if you need to take a week away again, just come to mine.”

“Yeah, like Mr and Mrs Blight would appreciate me staying over for a week,” Luz laughed, not noticing how Amity’s face had paled.

“Luz, I don’t live with them anymore,” Amity admitted, scratching the back of her neck bashfully

“What? Where are you staying, oh my God, are you okay? Do you need me to call Eda?”

“Luz, chill, it’s fine, I kind of, ran away. I’m living with Edric, Emira and Viney now,” Amity explained, hoping Luz didn’t ask the obvious question.

“Are they the reason one of your arms is broken and your face is all swollen?” She asked, smiling slightly. Amity had told her the stories of when they were younger and the twins would get Amity into trouble or hurt, like the time they made her climb the tree cause they had managed to convince her that there were fairies up there.

“Yeah, I uh, fell down the stairs, they tricked me,” Amity had never been the best at lying, especially to Luz, but from the look on her face, Luz decided it was best not to press.

Just as she was about to speak again, Amity’s phone started ringing.

“Hey Lilith, no, I found her, no you don’t have to call anyone we’re fine, yeah hold up I’ll ask her,” she moved the phone from her ear and turned to Luz “want Lilith and Eda to pick you up? They promised McDonalds.”

“Just Eda, I don’t wanna see Lilith right now,” Luz admitted.

Amity smiled, and brought the phone back up to her ear, “she asks if it can just be Eda if that’s okay, yeah? Okay, bye Lilith.”

“I shouldn’t have said that, she’s gonna be so mad at me,” Luz muttered, pulling her hands up to her hair.

“Hey, no, no thinking that, can you give me one second to tell Eda where we are or do you wanna talk?” Amity asked, grabbing Luz’s hand with her broken one.

“I, I wanna talk to her,” Luz decided, causing Amity to smile.

They talked for a few minutes, Luz apologising and telling Eda where the two of them were, while Amity could hear Eda from the other side of the phone yelling at Luz for apologising so much.

Once Eda hung up, Luz awkwardly handed Amity’s phone back to her.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered again.

“No,” Amity said harshly, “you have absolutely nothing to be sorry for, I promise.”

“But, I, Lilith, she tried to apologise to me, and I just, I ran. I should have accepted her apology, she’s trying to make things better, and I can’t. Does that make me a bad person?” There were tears in her eyes now, she was asking, no, begging Amity to help her.

“Luz,” Amity sighed, an internal war going on in her head about whether or not she should tell. Finally, she decided to, Luz had a right to know, “my parents.”

“What?”

“You asked me earlier, what happened to me, it was my parents. After I got home from school on Friday, they were furious, for me skipping last lesson and being seen with you again,” she laughed bitterly. “After everything that happened with me and Willow years ago, I’m sure they were expecting me to cave on Thursday when they told me to stop hanging out with you. You can imagine their shock when I didn’t.”

“Amity, I.”

“Luz, if you say you’re sorry one more time,” she laughed again, more tears pouring down her face. “The fact is, after everything that happened with me and my mother, do you think that by this time next year I should just accept them if they apologise?”

“What? No! They don’t deserve… oh, that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Exactly Luz, whether you want to forgive her or not is up to you, and neither make you a bad person. A sticky plaster won’t fix a broken leg and an apology won’t fix trauma, she has to try, and if that still doesn’t work, well, try something else, see a family therapist or something.”

“Thank you Amity, I’ve spent all week feeling like a monster, that if I go back home, they’ll hate me, I just, thank you.”

“Hey, it’s no problem, what are best friends for?” She nudged her shoulder, laughing slightly.

“Hm? I thought Willow was my best friend,” Amity made an exaggerated gasp, causing Luz to laugh as well, “I’m kidding, you dork.”

“Sure, well I guess if Willow really is your best friend, I’ll just leave,” Amity crossed her arms, before pretending to start walking off.

“Wait, I’m sowwy,” Luz pouted, before both of them started laughing again.

Eda pulled up not long after, and they drove to the McDonald’s up the street from their house.

“Hey kid, you wanna stay for the night?” Eda asked, while Luz and Amity were practically asleep in the back of the small brown car.

“Yeah, sure, let me just call my sister.”

Eda gave her a strange look, before shrugging and letting the kid do her thing.

By the time they got back to the owl house, Eda had to shake the two of them awake, so they could stumble up the stairs like a pair of drunks to go to sleep ready for school the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I am currently in the process of rewriting this to flesh out more of the characters and add in more of the less plot heavy chapters, cause I feel like I'm kind of punching people with angst upon angst at this point lmao.


	14. Reflection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amity thinks back to one of her happiest memories with Luz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imagine not posting for a week, pfft, can't be me.
> 
> But yeah, I managed to break my finger and my laptops been bugging out on me again... also I've just been playing a lot of minecraft I won't even lie, lmao.
> 
> Well, have a christmas chapter because I felt like it

After Amity left her house, things started to look up for her. She was going to start doing classes she actually enjoyed, and while it may take some effort and time, she was sure she could catch up with the rest of the class, though she still had a few months before her A-levels, she just needed to get a good portfolio started.

She lied, and told the school that her parents had gotten new phones, and Odalia sent all mail sent to the manor to the small apartment Ed, Em and Viney lived in.

It wasn’t the most comfortable place to stay, with her and Ed having to share a room, and swap whoever slept on the floor, since the bed wasn’t big enough for them to share without making it uncomfortable.

It was safe to say that not only was Amity glad that she could stay at Luz’s that night, but she could also sleep in a real bed, without having to hear her brother’s snoring… Though Eda’s could be heard from down the hall.

She didn’t sleep straight away, unlike Luz, who was curled up at her side, snoring softly, though, somehow Amity didn’t find it too annoying.

Lying back, Amity thought about the months they had spent together, afew memories coming to mind straight away. Like the time they had both gone to Eda’s for Christmas dinner. The Blight’s had preferred to have a Christmas lunch, and then dismiss their daughter for the rest of the day while they drank wine and watched Christmas movies in the front room.

This had been the first year that Amity didn’t mind them doing so.

Once she had been dismissed, she grabbed the presents she had hidden under the bed, and headed out to the owl house. It wasn’t snowing, but it felt cold enough to do so, so Amity walked the five miles from her house to Luz’s, four presents secure in her bag, in case it decided to start raining again.

She had been splashed by a car on her way over, and it nearly ruined her whole mood. “I shouldn’t have come, I know I was invited, but what if they don’t want me there, what if they just want some family time and…” She shook the thoughts from her mind and carried on walking.

By the time she got to Eda’s house, her hands were frozen, and she was shaking like a chihuahua. It had started to rain, and her hand shook as she knocked on the door.

Eda was the one to answer, looking Amity up and down, and for a second she thought Eda was about to send her away.

“Amelia, right?”

“Uh, Amity,” she corrected.

“Same difference, come on in, Luz is by the fire,” she gestured behind her, opening the door further so the small girl could step in.

“Oh, uh, before I go, I actually have a present for you,” Amity said, pulling off her bag and handing Eda a gold wrapped box. “Luz said you liked shiny things, so when I saw this I had to get you it,” she smiled slightly.

Inside the box was some gold nail polish and a light up jumper Amity had seen in Tesco. She used to go on Tuesdays after school, since she went home at lunch time. The one in the town centre was small, but it had the meal deals, and it sometimes sold clothes, especially around Christmas.

Eda smiled at the young girl, “you’re alright Amy,” she said, patting her on the head, and Amity didn’t even bother correcting her that time.

Amity went towards the living room, where Luz was sat infront of the fire, King on her lap.

“Hey Ami, sorry I didn’t answer the door, King fell asleep in my lap and it’s like, against the law for me to move,” she laughed slightly.

“That’s fair, and hey, at least I got to give Eda her present,” Amity shrugged, sitting down next to Luz, who rested her head on Amity’s shoulder.

“You do know you didn’t have to get her a present right?” Luz asked.

“Yeah, but I thought it would be nice, holidays are about giving you know.”

“Yeah yeah, well, you want your present or not?” Luz laughed.

“I dunno, I’m kinda comfortable here,” Amity smiled, putting all of her weight on Luz.

“Ami, you’re gonna squish King,” Luz laughed, trying to push Amity off her.

“What sorry, I can’t hear you.”

“Ami!”

“Alright, alright, I’m getting up.”

They were both breathing heavily from laughing so hard, their faces flushed pink.

“Your presents up in my room,” Luz said, getting up off the floor, King jumping off, whining slightly. “Come on you big baby, you can sleep on my bed.”

The house wasn’t too big, with two floors and narrow corridors, and Luz’s room wasn’t really big enough to keep all her stuff in.

“You sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor?” Amity asked, looking at the blue sleeping bag.

“Huh? Oh yeah, it’s my sleep cocoon,” she laughed. “Eda doesn’t really have the money to buy another bed, so I just use my old camping stuff I left here.”

“Doesn’t your back hurt?”

“Constantly, but hey, it’s warm and I don’t have to worry about falling out of it,”she smiled.

Thinking back on it, Amity realised that the bed she was currently lying in was new, at least, to Luz it was.

Glancing down, she noticed it was from the charity shop in the town, and last she saw it was on offer for £20.

Luz had gotten her a small sketchbook. It was green, and on the inside cover there was a note from Luz. “Keep drawing, you’re pretty good”. It had meant more to her than anything her parents had gotten her that year, as that was all assorted clothes and science books so she could follow in her fathers footsteps.

“I noticed you were drawing on printer paper from the school printer, thought I would get you something so your drawings didn’t get ruined,” she shrugged.

“Guess this is the year of art presents,” Amity had laughed, pulling a box of compressed charcoal out of her bag, handing it over to Luz. “I ran out of wrapping paper,” she admitted, looking as Luz’s eyes lit up.

“Thank you!” She tackled Amity into a hug, and they both ended up on Luz’s ‘sleep cocoon’ laughing, presents clutched in hand.

Amity smiled, rolling over and looking at Luz as she slept, and just as she started to drift off, one thought crossed her mind.

I’m in love with my best friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t expect all chapters to be this length, I just got in a really big groove while writing this


End file.
